


Asynchronous

by did_you_reboot, ZGuavi



Series: After Everything [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Computer Programming, Multi, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, Slow Burn, Technology, so slow, very smart people being very stupid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26595049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/did_you_reboot/pseuds/did_you_reboot, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZGuavi/pseuds/ZGuavi
Summary: Startup life was often stressful, but the Warrior of Light found satisfaction in it. Despite this, however, the threads of life have deigned to deliver her further compounding stress in the form of a chance encounter with the principal engineer of AnyderSoft, who -- for reasons unknown -- decides to take a confusing interest in her tiny little startup.
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Series: After Everything [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557385
Comments: 171
Kudos: 125





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i laughed so much at this AU with zguavi and got waaaay too invested in it so here you go! tags will be updated as soon as they apply because i don't know how to tag anything right now lol
> 
> eorzea, but Modern!

Conferences were never perfect. That they can run as smoothly as they do is impressive, all things considered. But there were always a few hiccups here and there.

Annaiette frustratingly found herself at a “here and there” sort of hiccup, where she had gone looking for a panel room, only to find signs which did not adequately explain how one should get from A to B in this horror maze of escalators. And eventually she did finally find her way to the right room—which was, despite its size and the fact that it was one of the main event halls, very unhelpfully marked with signs printed on regular printer paper because someone had forgotten the real signs—though by now she was just on time which meant she may as well be late. And so, in lieu of shuffling into the room tired and hungry, she decided to partake in the coffee and snacks that had been set up just outside.

A panel called “Optimizing Software Design for Cloud-based Container Infrastructure” was certainly one that she would need her brain to be functioning at least at half capacity and so she thanked the gods for whoever had first decided that conferences ought to have coffee and snacks for attendees at different points in the day. This much activity before noon never went well for her, and she hadn’t been able to get something to eat on the way from the hotel due to the massive throngs of people who had the same idea.

She let out an uncontrollable yawn just as she was pumping coffee from the dispenser.

“I agree with you,” came an amused voice just as her yawn died away. “Never was a morning person, myself.”

The voice belonged to the person on the other side of the table: a tall, brown-haired man with a curious streak of white in his bangs, who seemed similarly weary of being conscious prior to lunch time. The way he was puzzling over the snacks seemed oddly theatrical despite his obvious tiredness, and Annaiette internally wondered if she ought to hurry away in case she was opening herself up to unwanted weirdness. Still, he seemed more interested in food than in her and she wasn’t getting a bad vibe off him, so she cautiously laughed in response.

“Not a morning person, huh?” she said. “Are you here for that cloud infrastructure panel?”

He laughed—or rather, smirked as his shoulders moved in a silent laugh—and nodded. “Indeed. I do dislike that it’s so early, nor did I have time to get a decent cup of coffee prior,” he said with a slight grumble. “And so one must take matters into one’s own hands.”

“Well, we’re already late so what’s a few more minutes to get breakfast, right?” she laughed. She plucked a bagel and a small plate of very appealing grapes from the table with a grin. “I’m sure what’s-his-face won’t mind.”

“I like how you think,” he replied, his smirk growing slightly wider. “I’m sure what’s-his-face appreciates those with their priorities in order.”

It seemed that Annaiette managed to make one of those five-minute-long friendships that she often made during these conferences since he patiently waited for her to stuff napkins into her pocket—when her food and coffee and napkins for the inevitable mess were in order, they walked together to the panel room door.

“After you,” he said as he pulled the door open. She smiled gratefully and thanked him as she stepped into the room.

It seemed the panel hadn’t actually started yet despite the fact that they were five minutes late by now. In fact, an anxious MC stood on the stage, drumming his fingers on the edge of the lectern as he watched the backstage entrance for the arrival of the absent speaker.

“Oh, I suppose it worked out in the end,” Annaiette laughed. Her new friend, who was lazily casting his eyes over the crowd, nodded in agreement.

“It certainly did,” he said. He turned to her and smiled, and she supposed this new friend was about to take his leave of her. “It was a pleasure commiserating…?” He trailed off expectantly.

“Annaiette,” she replied with a smile.

“It was a pleasure, Annaiette. I do hope you manage to get some rest,” he said.

And before she could ask his name in return, he sauntered off down the center aisle with a nonchalant wave of his hand. She was just in the middle of wondering if he was the sort of person who always looked for the closest seat he could find, until the MC caught sight of him and gestured in both relief and excitement.

“And there he is!” the MC exclaimed.

Annaiette’s eyes widened in disbelief as that man climbed the steps to the stage.

“Everyone please give a warm welcome to Solus Galvus!”

She felt her cheeks beginning to burn in embarrassment.

_She called him what’s-his-face right to his face…!_

_But who in the hells is late to his own godsdamned panel?!_

“Pray forgive my tardiness. I’m not a morning person, you see,” said Solus into the mic as he took the MC's place at the lectern. He held his coffee cup up and wiggled it, and the crowd let out an appreciative laugh. All Annaiette wanted to do, though, was either punch him or crawl into a hole—or both.

“Let’s get started then, shall we? I suppose some background about me is in order, so for those of you who may not know me…”

And she swore that his eyes briefly glanced directly at her.

* * *

While Solus’ panel was fascinating, the longer Annaiette listened, the more disappointment she felt. She’d decided on this panel to learn more about the topic (and got up early for it!), only to find that all his examples and use cases were for concurrent users on the order of millions, whereas her own particular case was unlikely to break 2000. He was, at the very least, an entertaining speaker; she worried at first that given his weary appearance, his talk would be similarly weary, but it turned out that this fear was quite unfounded. He was eloquent, yes, but not overwhelmingly nor incomprehensibly so, and he had a wry humor which kept the audience quite engaged.

Engaged or not, though, Annaiette found herself relating her earlier gaffe to her friends.

When the panel finished, she made her way out of the room still feeling embarrassed about her morning faux pas and found herself coping with said embarrassment by telling the story to any friends and coworkers that she came across, all of whom found it hilarious; even Estinien cracked a thin smile over it. She took solace in the fact that she had no reason to ever again cross paths with one of the most senior engineers at AnyderSoft, and actually had quite a good day at the other panels and meetups that she attended.

By the end of the afternoon, though, she was exhausted. She liked talking to people but an entire weekend’s worth of shaking hands and putting on her best Professional Annaiette face had taken its toll and she had fully intended on just having a drink at her hotel bar and going to bed. That was, of course, before Estinien texted her that he was going to an after party for the free drinks. She had an invite for that particular one but hadn’t intended on going, but if Estinien was going she supposed it would be fun. It was at an arcade, after all, so she could take the free food and drink and then find some games to play.

But of course, since she hadn’t seen him in a few months, she’d quickly forgotten that Estinien was Estinien; they made it inside and got a drink and plate of food each, but as soon as her back was turned, she found that he’d completely disappeared.

“I don’t know what I expected,” she muttered to herself as she went to find a (relatively) quiet corner in the venue to eat her food.

She had a good time people-watching as she ate. It was always entertaining to see the ways that these professionals unraveled at these sorts of parties. There were different clusters of people filling the arcade: the quiet ones in the shadows like her, who only wished to eat and drink, and the raucous younger ones posturing at each other and somehow talking entirely too loudly even over the din of the arcade, and the delightful older ones who got a bit of alcohol into them and were happily reclaiming a moment their younger years by challenging each other to games. There were also the ones that made Annaiette squint disapprovingly—those people who could not turn off their networking selves and instead continued insufferably and very obviously shmoozing, whether or not their victims were receptive.

But there was no hiding forever at an after party.

“Annaiette! There you are!” came a voice as she was waiting in line for another cocktail.

She let out a breath of relief when she found that it was only Moenbryda and Urianger that had gotten in line behind her. “Hey! Haven’t seen you all week!” said Annaiette, grinning. “Did you have a good time?”

“Can’t complain!” Moenbryda said, her grin matching Annaiette’s. “There was at least _one_ workshop that was worth my while. Yourself?”

The time in line passed quickly with Moenbryda and Urianger, who hadn’t actually attended the conference and had tagged along with Moenbryda in order to make a small vacation out of the conference trip. It wasn’t long until the three of them perhaps had a drink or two too many (the themed event cocktails were delicious and stronger than expected), and Annaiette found herself with a nice buzz which was made even nicer because she had paid for none of it. A handful of friends and acquaintances found the trio as they chatted at a standing table, and the alcohol made them perhaps a little too enthusiastic about Ysayle and her recently-dyed vivid blue hair.

When no more friends appeared, they took to the arcade floor with the quest to find the most over-the-top game they could. Upon realizing there was a dragoon simulator game, Annaiette found herself instantly fixated on playing it because she’d get to hit a fake dragon with a padded spear, and though the line for it was long, Moenbryda found her fervent, half-drunken desire to hit things hilarious and insisted that they wait to give it a try. Fortunately, the game was within view of a cluster of dance and rhythm games, and they entertained themselves by watching middle-aged engineers trying their very best at the dance games and having the time of their lives.

Her turn finally came to hit the dragon, and by the Twelve did she hit that dragon. An involuntary, almost instinctive battle cry left her mouth as she did so, and it left Moenbryda howling with laughter and Urianger visibly grinning. She, too, was doubled over in laughter and completely forgot to look at her score, and by the time she realized this the next person had already started their game.

“I’m going to the restroom,” said Annaiette when she straightened up and found herself perhaps a bit _too_ wobbly and hazy—a splash of water to the face probably wouldn’t go amiss.

“Sounds good. We’re going to look at the UFO catchers, so meet us there!” Moenbryda gestured to the long row of UFO catchers filled with all manner of prizes which they will likely never win.

Annaiette nodded and wove through the crowd to the restrooms in the quieter back area of the arcade, where the games looked much, much older and were considerably less flashy. Once she found the bathroom — a task slightly more difficult than she would have liked for a couple reasons — she slipped around the privacy wall obscuring the door and found something that made her immediately stop in her tracks.

“Oh, wrong side,” she murmured to herself.

“No, no, you’re in the right place,” said a familiar voice. “My apologies.”

She squinted at the man on his phone in the shadows and found—to her absolute horror—that it was somehow— _somehow_ —none other than Solus Galvus idling in the corner, his face illuminated by the light of his phone. She desperately hoped that he had seen enough people during the day to have forgotten her face.

“Ah, you’re the woman from this morning,” he said as he put his phone into his pocket and straightened up. “Annaiette, was it?”

No such luck.

She wanted to crawl into a hole—or rather, she _would have_ wanted to, if not for the alcohol and the residual exhilaration of hitting a fake dragon. She was ready to demand answers of this man.

“What are you doing here?!” spilled out of her mouth, with surprise and confusion and reproach coloring her voice. Solus let out a weary, mildly disgruntled sigh before shrugging in resignation with the hint of a smirk on his lips.

“Hiding. I’ve grown tired of the sycophants out there. Shameless, the lot of them,” he said wryly.

This, however, did not exactly answer her question.

“But what in the hells are you doing _here?_ In the corner by the restroom?!”

“Would you believe that nobody has come to use the restroom in—” He glanced at his watch. “—about half a bell.”

“What?” was all Annaiette could say. Solus let out a laugh.

“How many women did you see out there?” he asked.

She squinted as she racked her brain, but could only come up with herself, Moenbryda, and Ysayle. She was sure there were more...there had to be more...

“As regrettable as it is, it does afford me the chance to hide,” said Solus. “I’d go back to the hotel, but I’ve colleagues here who require some level of...supervision.” His mouth slowly turned into a frown as he spoke.

Before Annaiette realized what she was doing, she rapped his arm with the back of her hand. “And what if people get the wrong idea about old what’s-his-face hiding back here?”

Both she and Solus were surprised by this and in a horrifying moment of clarity in the midst of her drunken brain, she wondered if she might have just offended a man who could easily ruin her career. But to her great relief, his lips spread into an amused smile and he let out a laugh.

“Old what’s-his-face has taken the point, and will be on his way,” he chuckled, though she got the distinct impression that he couldn’t care less what people thought of him. He made to step past her to leave, but not before pulling a card holder from his pocket and extending a card to her. Her brain couldn’t quite process this and it took her a moment to stop blankly staring at at the card. She marveled at the feel of it in her fingers—his business card felt so so weighty and so _premium_ and was tastefully embossed with the AnyderSoft logo.

It took her altogether too long to realize that he was waiting to receive one in return. Her own business card was woefully inferior to the beautiful thing he had given her, and she felt some amount of embarrassment in handing him a card that she had printed at an office supply store a few days prior because the ones her company had given her were misprinted with “Office Manager” as her position. Her last-minute cards weren’t even printed on glossy paper—let alone _embossed._

He took a moment to read it, and she noticed his eyebrows rise slightly in either interest or disgust, she couldn’t tell which.

“Ah, you work for Leve. Fascinating startup—I should like to hear about it sometime,” he said, smiling as he stowed the card in the holder and pocketed it. He didn’t _sound_ disingenuous, but Annaiette couldn’t help but wonder if he was lying to be polite…

“Well. You’ve got my email on that card, so ask as you like,” Annaiette said, gesturing vaguely at nothing in particular.

Solus nodded once before stepping past her to take his leave. “I must be off. I think I’ve left my colleagues alone for long enough,” he said. As he disappeared around the privacy wall, she thought she heard him muttering, “Lahabrea is probably still playing the dancing game…”

And as she turned to enter the restroom, she had a curious but passing thought:

_...why does that sound so familiar?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **tl;dr: she keeps running into that asshole tho**
> 
> I HOPE Y'ALL ENJOYED! just sorta dumped all this text out the past couple days because boy wowie modern AU tho
> 
> ilu all <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a day at the zoo

The trip to the Ishgard Zoo was perhaps half the reason why Annaiette had been excited to attend the tech conference. 

With the conference over with, she only had adorable animals awaiting her (and crowds and a flight home, she supposed, but she didn’t want to think about it). Her friends all had varying plans which did _not_ involve the zoo, and so she was here alone—not that it bothered her at all, especially after spending so much time having to actually interact with others. Still, she’d made a decent effort to invite people and had even asked Estinien if he wanted to join, but only received a confusingly unnecessary message last night in lieu of an actual response. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to send her similarly unnecessary messages, so she simply shrugged it off and made a mental note to find out if he came back from Sohm Al alive.

And so here she was, leisurely winding her way through the Sea of Clouds section of the Ishgard Zoo. She spent a good amount of time staring at the dhalmels as she tried to make sense of why they made her so uncomfortable, before meandering to the paissa enclosure and wondering the selfsame thing. When she could glean no satisfactory answers from the unsettling eyes of the paissa, she continued to the sanuwa enclosure, where there was a sizable crowd gathered around a keeper giving a presentation as another keeper tossed hunks of meat at the eager scalekin.

It was a bit difficult to hear, though, as the crowd was noisy and the keeper’s little speaker was only so powerful; Annaiette found her attention wandering, and it was then that her eyes briefly fell upon a gaggle of what must have been attendees from the conference. They were dressed casually but there was something about the array of white trainers and slacks with shirts tucked into them that felt distinctly _engineer-y_. Their shirts were all matching—blue shirts bearing text she couldn’t make out from her position—which made it was obvious they were all there together for some sort of event. Someone with a clipboard was doing his damndest to coordinate them, but everyone in his group appeared to be some level of exasperated. She stifled a laugh at the sight before turning back to the sanuwa, briefly praying that those engineers would be able to have _some_ semblance of fun today.

Annaiette found herself wandering into the Dravanian Forelands area and with this change in scenery, she thought it was high time for a snack and coffee. There was a free bench just in front of the expansive bear enclosure, so she parked herself there and eagerly rummaged through her backpack for her bag of dried persimmons and travel mug. It was quite pleasant to watch the bears while she ate—most looked wonderfully relaxed in the shade, and she liked the one having a hell of a time playing with a giant ball.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were following me.”

This voice gave her pause, and not a moment later, Solus Galvus leisurely took a seat on the other end of the bench.

The cheek of this man.

“I think _I’m_ the one who should be saying that,” Annaiette said, raising her eyebrows in disbelief as he leaned back and crossed his legs. “Are you here alone?”

“Would that I were,” Solus replied with a wry laugh as he cast his gaze out toward the bears. “Our COO decided that despite our _many_ years of service, we ought to take this as an opportunity for team-building. I, on the other hand, decided to take this as an opportunity to slip away.”

It appeared that Solus was wearing the same blue shirt worn by the exasperated engineers back at the sanuwa enclosure, and Annaiette could now see that the shirt was printed with the AnyderSoft logo and a stylish blurb that read “ _TEAMS, NOT HEROES!_ ” He wasn’t, however, sporting white trainers and was instead wearing leather dress shoes—certainly not what she expected for a trip to the zoo. Had he perhaps forgotten to bring comfortable shoes to the conference?

“What sort of team-building do you even get done at a zoo?” she asked in amusement. “Does everyone rate and review the relative cuteness of the animals together? ‘Dhalmels, three out of ten. Gaelicats, eight out of ten.’”

“Truly the epitome of team synergy: animal cuteness ratings,” Solus said, smirking and giving her a sidelong glance. “I didn’t stick around long enough to find out if they agreed that dhalmels were a three.”

She laughed. He wasn’t the bad sort of company; his humor was amusing enough and for the moment he was not imposing _too_ far upon her personal bubble. He seemed content to sit and watch the bears, and she got the strange feeling that he might have been wishing to be one of the bears lounging under the trees. She wouldn’t blame him were that the case.

After a glance at her bag of dried fruit, she extended it toward him.

“Want one?”

He glanced down at it in mild surprise and for a moment she thought he was about to turn his nose up at it, but after perhaps too long of a pause, he finally took one from the bag. “Quite generous of you, offering your food to someone who amounts to a stranger,” he said as he examined the dried persimmon. And between his words, she could clearly hear, “ _And what might you be expecting in return?_ ”

Likely gauging whether she was one of those _sycophants_ , but fortunately for him, she had little interest in working for a company as big as AnyderSoft.

“I’ve no idea what you might be implying,” Annaiette said, giving him a severe look and holding her hand out expectantly. “Give it back if it’s not to your liking.”

“Don’t you know it’s rude to take gifts back?” he said airily before taking a dramatic bite.

Annaiette snorted in amusement and couldn’t hold the stern look—she grinned, turning back to the bears as she took another persimmon from the bag. Solus didn’t speak again and they spent the next few minutes in silence as they ate, until Annaiette found her hunger for snacks sated.

“I’m going to keep walking,” she said as she put the fruit and coffee away and zipped her backpack up.

For a brief moment she wondered if she might regret it if she invited him to come along—he wasn’t leering at her nor was he being at all pushy or otherwise weird—and she could always make some excuse that she was being summoned by friends elsewhere in the zoo and hurry away.

She hoped she was not misplacing her faith in the decency of people.

“You’re welcome to come along if you like,” she said, getting to her feet and shouldering her bag. “Unless you need to get back to that very important team-building you’re missing out on.”

For a brief moment, surprise flashed across his face before a small look of interest replaced it. “Oh, I’m certain they will be able to team-build without the likes of me,” he said wryly as he got to his feet and put his hands in his pockets. “I may miss out on what wisdom the paissa might impart to them, but that is a risk I’m willing to take.”

“Not many would take such a risk,” Annaiette laughed as she began walking toward the bandersnatches. “How do you manage?”

“I shall have to glean wisdom from elsewhere. They _do_ say that wisdom abounds in korpokkurs.” And though Annaiette was not looking at him, she could almost hear the smirk.

“They do, do they?” 

“Most certainly.”

She snickered and didn’t reply—they’d just arrived at the bandersnatch enclosure so instead she busied herself with attempting to read the informational sign whilst children hopped excitedly around it. When she finally finished (or rather, when the children were herded away by their guardians and she could read without peering over them), she looked up in search of her temporary companion and found him some distance away, resting his elbows on the outer barrier and watching the lounging bandersnatches with a sort of lazy interest.

“You return unscathed,” he said when she stood beside him. He didn’t take his eyes off the beastkin but she could see that the corner of his mouth was upturned just slightly.

“Only just,” she replied with a laugh as she pulled her phone out to take a photo of the bandersnatches laying atop each other as they napped in the shade. “The sign says they’re supposed to be very stealthy. They are very stealthily napping.”

“Oh, I hadn’t realized there were even bandersnatches in there,” Solus said wryly.

“Mhmm. That’s how good they are.”

They continued in this way for a while—casual conversation interspersed with facetious remarks when they stopped at each new exhibit. He had little interest in reading the signs, least of all when they were swarmed by children, and so she would brave the crowd and then take some photos before finding wherever he had wandered off to. Every so often she found him glancing at notifications coming through on his watch, and at first he’d silently laughed but as time went on, there were enough of them for irritation to slowly appear on his face.

“Someone trying to get a hold of you?” Annaiette asked, raising her eyebrows when he swiped another notification away.

“My absence from team building has not gone unnoticed,” said Solus.

“Are you going back?”

“Not just yet. I’ll let him sweat for a little while longer,” he said, smirking. “I don’t know what he was thinking, scheduling team building right after the conference. Half the team is hungover.”

Annaiette couldn’t help but chuckle at this. “Maybe that’s the only way he could get you all together—at a conference and hungover. Less fight in you that way.”

“You may be on to something,” he said with a low laugh.

They continued on, and finally, the moment of truth was upon them: they’d entered a lush aviary with a small population of korpokkurs and dorpokkurs milling about.

“So what wisdom do the korpokkurs have to offer? Are you gleaning yet?” Annaiette asked with a grin as she tried to get a photo of them tossing their water droplets into the air.

“I believe the wisdom here is to stay hydrated and take baths.”

“That _is_ very wise. Good thing we came here.”

But it seemed that whoever was trying to contact Solus was quite determined to do so. He finally pulled his phone out to reply to them and looked imminently ready to send an irate response, but suddenly froze as a look of realization came over him. His eyes slowly moved from the screen to her, and he held the phone up in his hand.

“Might you be willing to take a photo with me?” he asked.

Annaiette was not opposed, but she was certainly quite confused. “Sure, but why?”

“He is constantly on my case about not having _friends_ ,” said Solus distastefully as he tapped his phone and swapped it to the front-facing camera. “Stay there.”

There was hardly a moment for Annaiette to process the fact that he so casually spoke of _not having friends_ before he held the camera up and positioned himself so that both she and the korpokkurs were visible behind him. She grinned and held up a hand in greeting and a moment later, there was the sound of a fake shutter snap.

“With any luck, he’ll stop bothering me for a short while,” Solus said, smirking as he sent the photo off.

He watched his phone for a few more moments as his smirk grew just a bit wider. “Well, that certainly shut him up. You have my thanks.” 

“Glad to help—I think,” Annaiette replied in slight confusion as Solus pocketed his phone. She smiled and gestured vaguely down the aviary path. “Well, shall we? Unless you still need more korpokkur wisdom.”

“No, I believe the korpokkurs have dispensed their allotment of wisdom for today,” said Solus with a shrug.

The rest of the walk through the aviary was relatively uneventful apart from the small break they took to listen to a keeper’s presentation on colibri and lorikeets. It appeared that the selfie really did shut up whoever was bothering Solus because he didn’t receive any further notifications—a fact which he seemed exceedingly pleased about. 

“Well, it’s almost closing time,” Annaiette said, peering at her phone as they exited the aviary building. “A bit sad we didn’t get much time to look at the frogs and snakes.”

“It simply gives you an excuse to visit Ishgard again,” he said matter-of-factly.

The buzz of her phone drew her attention, and she was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a text message from Aymeric.

“Apparently someone is here to pick me up for dinner,” Annaiette said with a laugh. “Are you going to find your AnyderSoft people?”

“No, I think I’ll go back to the hotel for a nap,” said Solus with a small chuckle as they began heading for the zoo exit.

“It’s nearly evening and you’re going to nap?” she laughed in disbelief.

“Our team dinner isn’t for a few hours. Ergo, naptime.”

“Is most of your team still here? In Ishgard, I mean.”

It took him a few moments to think on it. “We brought so many people with us that I can’t be certain apart from the C-levels...a handful of whom are here in the zoo.”

“Wait...are those C-levels involved in this team building thing?” Annaiette asked, wide-eyed.

“They were.”

Annaiette couldn’t stop the loud barks of laughter from leaving her throat, to which Solus’ lips turned up in a roguish grin.

“The COO and CTO were the ones nagging me to come back, in fact.”

“This is amazing,” Annaiette wheezed in an attempt to control her mirth. “Team building with _executives?!_ ”

“That’s what _I_ said, but no, they thought we ought to do something together and just _had_ to make it official company business.”

“Well, executives and all that, I suppose. But you aren’t one, right?”

“No, thankfully. They tried to make me one years ago, but that is far more responsibility than I care to have.”

It wasn’t long until they were outside the zoo, just in front of the ticketing area. “Thanks for walking around with me. It was fun,” she said brightly, holding out her hand. 

“It was my pleasure,” he said, giving her hand a quick but firm shake. “Have a good flight home, whenever you do leave.”

“You too! And have a good nap,” Annaiette replied. She glanced toward the parking lot and nearly jumped when she found Estinien already waiting for her on his blood red motorcycle, an extra helmet waiting in the crook of his elbow. “It was great meeting you!” she said, giving him one last grin as she waved and trotted over to her waiting friend.

And because she knew it would supremely irritate Estinien—and as revenge for texting her at 3 AM— she pulled him into the tightest hug she could. Predictably, he grunted and squirmed, leaning as far back as he could without overbalancing on the bike.

“All right, all right, I’m sorry,” he said gruffly, and immediately she released him. He thrust the helmet at her before she could hug him again (not that she was going to), and she pulled the tie from her hair before shoving the helmet over her head.

“Thanks for coming to get me,” said Annaiette as she got on behind him.

“Was already passing through, so I may as well,” Estinien said as he started the motorcycle, which Annaiette knew was a lie because there was no way he would have gone all the way to Sohm Al and back with a spare helmet. “Hold on, then.”

And as he settled into his seat and revved the engine, Annaiette looked over her shoulder to see if Solus had wandered away yet; he hadn’t and was lazily watching her with his hands in his pockets. 

They started moving just when she waved at him again, and before she faced forward to get a proper hold around Estinien’s waist, she thought she might have seen Solus give a small, muted wave in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **tl;dr: EXCUSE ME SOLUS HAS FRIENDS?????**
> 
> whoops i was out of it and forgot to put notes when i posted. anyway, i hope y'all are enjoying this dumb modern AU XD 
> 
> all fueled by the wonderful [book club discord](https://discord.gg/xqc2Ut5)! have a peek if you want to chill with ffxiv fic writers and readers!


	3. Chapter 3

Annaiette had some regrets in life.

Her current regret was her decision to spend the entire weekend with her Ishgardian friends before flying home to Mor Dhona on the first flight of the work week. It was true that she had a wonderful weekend in Ishgard with friends both new and old, but the universe evidently wished to punish her for daring to indulge. 

This was how she found herself at the Ishgard Airport at half six in the morning, sitting beside her gate as she frantically tried to figure out just why their production environment was in the process of taking a horrific shite.

She’d gotten a panicked call—a _call_ —from Coultenet whilst she was waiting to get through security and learned that he’d been woken about a bell ago by the alarms which told him the production environment was in the process of taking a horrific shite. He was their head Ops person for a reason, but even he and Hoary Boulder combinedcouldn’t figure out just what had brought the live site down. Once she’d logged in, she found that she couldn’t blame them at all: despite her engineering team’s best efforts to log as thoroughly as possible, the logs she found were still inexplicable and confusing. Additionally, processes that should have existed didn’t, and ones that were generally reliable were churning and sputtering and spitting out incredibly unhelpful and confusing errors.

The flight had started boarding as she was just narrowing down the problem systems, and she ended up shuffling forward in line, laptop held up in one arm as she continued working with her face tinged red from mingled embarrassment and panic. Neither could she solve the problem before the flight attendants came by to tell the passengers to put their devices away. She spent a fraught twenty minutes combing her mind for everything she knew about the systems they’d set up, until finally the plane reached cruising altitude and they were allowed use of laptops again. 

And because the entire live site was in some sort of hopefully-not-death throe, she begrudgingly paid the WiFi fee so she could continue debugging. However, the WiFi was _just_ frustratingly slow enough to be absolutely useless for anything except messaging—she had to tamp down the overwhelming urge to yell obscenities at her laptop and began feverishly searching through source code for lack of anything more useful to do. Between her scrutiny of the source code and Coultenet’s moment-to-moment commentary via their messaging client, it was becoming clearer and clearer that _some_ sort of connectivity issue was to blame, though one that— _again_ —their logs failed to adequately describe.

The short flight to Mor Dhona had begun its descent before she could guide Coultenet through some things to try, leaving her to once more stew in her seat in frustration. It was as an eternity before the plane finally made its landing at the Mor Dhona airport, and was one further eternity as she waited for inexplicably slow people to gather their things and get off the bloody plane. After these two eternities it was her row’s turn to get off and in a flash she had grabbed her things and was out the gate, taking off for the exit as she hailed a ride with a rideshare service on her phone. With any luck, her ride would be there by the time she made it to the pickup area.

By now their work chat was exploding—most of their people had arrived at the office to find production down, and she was frantically trying to reply to both the chat channels and her emails in order to prevent people from doing things that would make the problem worse. Fortunately Y’shtola was of the same mind, which was one small relief. It was a short-lived one, though, because she soon received a call from Minfilia and Alphinaud both just as she found her ride at the pickup area. They didn’t have anything imminently useful to say and she spent a few agonizing minutes trying to allay their concerns.

When Annaiette finally arrived at the office, frazzled and still bearing her travel luggage since she’d gone straight there, she found it abuzz with a frenetic, anxious energy. She hastily made her way to the engineering corner, where Y’shtola and Coultenet were huddled around Moenbryda’s desk, Coultenet pointing at the screen with one hand and holding his hair away from his eyes with the other.

“Thank goodness you’re here,” said Coultenet in weary relief. “None of us can figure out what went wrong.”

She gave them the most reassuring smile she could despite the fact that she also hadn’t the slightest idea what had gone wrong.

“The issue is affecting all the microservices—some sort of unclear connectivity failure,” said Y’shtola, crossing her arms. “I’ve not been able to figure out why just yet. A bug in how we handled the networking, perhaps…”

They had only recently deployed the redesigned microservice architecture to the live environment, so Annaiette wondered if they were hitting some deep bug that they weren’t able to catch in their test environment. 

“Right. Right right right,” said Annaiette as she dropped into her chair and logged in. “Let’s start from the beginning, then…”

* * *

The engineering and devops teams sat in silence, glassy-eyed and limp in their seats.

Annaiette slowly lay her face on her desk, shutting her eyes and taking a deep, deep breath.

“It wasn’t even our fault…” she murmured, her voice bordering on a sob.

The actual issue, it turned out, was a partial outage on the platform hosting their live site services. They had never accounted for a partial outage, which explained the inexplicable and very unhelpful logs. But even more frustrating was the fact that they only found out about it because Hoary Boulder had started combing the internet to see if any other people were facing the same issues; eventually he’d come across a thread on a social media site where people were commiserating about the selfsame problem. What followed was the horrifying realization that their host hadn’t updated their uptime status page for bells—it was the first thing that Coultenet had checked when he was woken by the alarms, but the status page was only updated a half hour before the issue was actually resolved.

It had taken Annaiette and team a couple of bells to properly restart all the services and repair the partial corruption in their production databases. That partial corruption had been the veritable icing on the awful cake, but luckily Moenbryda had worked her magic which allowed them to revert the services to a working state with minimal headache.

And now all of them were ready to log out and perhaps have an ale or three.

“They will be receiving a call from me,” Y’shtola said, her voice heavy with irritation and disdain. “If they think it’s acceptable to not update their service status page _and_ to not have the decency to send their customers _some_ sort of notification about a partial cluster outage…”

“Maybe we really should have gone AnyderSoft instead,” Coultenet sighed, his voice slightly muffled. Annaiette’s eyes were still closed but it was clear that his face was in his hands.

“Still too expensive…” Annaiette muttered wearily.

A shared, collective sigh.

“What happened to you lot?”

The sound of the familiar, warm voice roused Annaiette from her face-desking, and she found Ardbert and Tataru watching them with mingled confusion and pity. 

“It’s been a very long and very pointless day,” laughed Moenbryda, with a hint of resentment in her voice. “Finished with your route, then?” 

“My last delivery for today was a parcel for Tataru,” Ardbert said, grinning. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder toward the front door. “You lot look like you could use a hug from Seto—he’ll not complain.”

“Seto!” Annaiette exclaimed, standing so hastily that her thigh caught painfully on the edge of her desk. 

And a minute later with her thigh throbbing in pain, she was outside and sinking into the warmth of Seto’s feathers with her arms around his neck.

Their office was often Ardbert’s last stop on his usual delivery route, and when he had the time, he often stayed a while to chat. A bad day could always be softened with time petting and hugging Ardbert’s faithful amaro, and Seto was always quite pleased by the attention they lavished upon him. Seto wasn’t always with him, though—there were days where Ardbert drove a truck because he had too many packages for one amaro to reasonably carry, but the days where he had time to chat were often days where the delivery load was light enough for Seto to carry.

Seto crooned appreciatively as Annaiette, Moenbryda, and Tataru gently pet him.

“Want to go out for drinks with us in a bit?” Annaiette heard Moenbryda ask. 

“Ah, afraid I can’t. Lamitt’s shift at the hospital is almost over and I said I’d pick her up today. Next time!”

Annaiette felt some amount of guilt ( _only some_ ) about snuggling with Seto and all but ignoring Ardbert, but Moenbryda and Hoary Boulder were more than chatty enough to make up for it. She’d been up since before dawn, after all, and if Ardbert had told her she could nap with Seto, she’d have been fast asleep in a heartbeat. 

But all too soon, the dreaded moment was upon her.

“I’d best be going, then,” said Ardbert brightly. “Hey, you asleep, Annaiette?”

She let out a drawn-out whine and nuzzled her face into Seto’s neck for a moment longer before woefully pulling herself away and taking a few steps back. “See you next time,” she said to to the both of them as Ardbert deftly hopped onto Seto’s back and clipped his safety harness in. “Tell Lamitt I said hi!”

“‘Course! Have a good one!” 

Her hair fluttered in the flurry of wind as Seto and Ardbert took to the sky, and she wistfully watched them soar away until they were obscured by the surrounding buildings. 

“So!” Moenbryda said, clapping her hands together with a grin. “Drinks, then? I hardly think we’re going to get any real work done today.”

It was just barely four in the afternoon by now—the earliest that Annaiette could reasonably consider having drinks if she didn’t want to become entirely useless at work. However, after a day of airports and staring into logs and cleaning up messes that weren’t even their fault, there was no way she’d do anything more than furiously file work items to properly handle and log partial outages.

And this was how they found themselves at the pub down the street with an ale each and food on the way.

“Gods, what an awful start to the week,” Annaiette groaned as she leaned back in her chair and ran her fingers through her hair. Coultenet sighed, resting his elbows on the table and rubbing his face.

“I feel ridiculous for calling you about it now,” he muttered into his hands. “Their status page was the _first thing_ I checked…”

Moenbryda let out a laugh. “We’ve already established that it’s _their_ fault and not ours, so I think the blame lies squarely with them that you called Annaiette just before she got on an airplane and caused her no end of stress.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Annaiette laughed, patting Coultenet on the shoulder as he sank down until his forehead touched the table. “Honestly, I’m glad it wasn’t something worse.”

“If it had been a bug on our part, then I’d be rewriting the entire thing out of shame,” said Y’shtola with a frown. Annaiette laughed, but she knew Y’shtola was serious and she knew if it _had_ been a bug on their part, she would be spending quite a bit of time convincing Y’shtola to _not_ rewrite the entire thing and instead settle for the _good enough_ fix.

“So how was the rest of your weekend in Ishgard?” asked Moenbryda. “You went to the zoo, right? Sorry we couldn’t come along.”

“Oh, it’s fine!” Annaiette said, waving Moenbryda’s apology away. But she quickly put her hand to the table and leaned in as the memory of her trip to the zoo came flooding back. “You’ll not believe what happened—I’m still wondering if it happened myself. Remember when I was losing my mind for an entire day because I’d called Solus Galvus ‘what’s his face’ to his face?”

“I think _everyone_ remembers,” Hoary Boulder laughed, to which she grinned and lightly rapped his arm with her knuckles.

“I was just minding my own business at the zoo and he turns up while I’m having a snack,” she continued. “He was hiding from some AnyderSoft team-building thing with the executives.”

Her friends, understandably, appeared incredibly confused.

“Wait. Team building? With _executives?_ ” Moenbryda said incredulously, arching an eyebrow. Annaiette nodded in agreement before letting out another laugh.

“Right? Anyways, he remembered me from the day before and we ended up walking around together because he didn’t want to be at the team-building event. I suppose you can do that when you’re friends with the executives.”

“Weird as all hell, but sounds like a good time! Didn’t forget his name again, did you?” Hoary Boulder asked cheekily.

“Proud to say that I didn’t call him ‘what’s his face’ once,” Annaiette laughed before glancing back to Moenbryda. “So what did you and Urianger get up to?”

“Ah! We had tickets for that special exhibit at the art museum…”

* * *

Solus Galvus stared at his screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **tl;dr: this week, the universe said "fuck u"**
> 
> aaaaaaAAAAAAA SUPER BIG THANKS TO [ZGUAVI](https://twitter.com/zguavi) BECAUSE MOST OF THIS SHIT WOULDN'T BE HERE IF NOT FOR HER <3 <3 <3 I JUST KINDA TAKE HER GALAXY BRAIN IDEAS AND STRING 'EM TOGETHER IN A STORY AAAA IM LOVE HER 😭🥰😍


	4. Chapter 4

As Time continued on its inexorable way, Solus Galvus found his own time to be in increasingly short supply. Gone were the days of locking himself in a room to work on code until that work was done; it had been years since he had personally touched any AnyderSoft code in any meaningful way. Now his days were full of meetings—they were meetings of all sorts across almost all the products that AnyderSoft now offered, but all generally boiled down to the following:

  * Guide people in doing the right things
  * Stop them from doing the wrong things
  * Tell them how to fix it when they thought they knew better and mucked up things by doing exactly what he said not to do



So because this unending hell of meetings often left him with little time at his desk to actually _do_ things—which, again, never included code work anymore—one day every other week he blocked out some time in his calendar to heavily discourage people from scheduling meetings during that time. Elidibus had suggested this to him some years ago when he’d been on the verge of burning out and having what would have been a fantastic breakdown, and he was quite pleased with the breathing room it afforded him.

Today, though, he would be afforded no such thing. 

He had just opened his lunch, a simple sandwich he’d brought from home—something he never did except on these days so that he wouldn’t need to leave his office and risk people flagging him down in the halls—when there was a light knock on the door.

And before he could swallow his mouthful of sandwich and answer, the door swung open and an oncoming headache entered his office.

“Hythlodaeus, you know I block out these mornings,” Solus grumbled as his friend dropped into the chair in front of his desk with a cheerful, mischievous smile.

“I know, that’s how I knew you were here,” Hythlodaeus replied lightly. He was holding a bunch of grapes and took this time to pop one into his mouth.

He knew Hythlodaeus was here to cause trouble—he could feel it in the pit of his stomach.

“What do you want?” Solus asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “Is it about the build farm additions you were asking for?” Hythlodaeus was certainly not here to talk about the build farm, but Solus asked just in case; he would _much_ rather talk about the build farm than whatever it was Hythlodaeus was actually here to talk about.

The smile on Hythlodaeus’s face grew slightly wider.

“Oh no, we can talk about that at the meeting tomorrow,” he said. He leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs, and had the audacity to nestle in and make himself comfortable. “How are you doing, my friend?”

“I’m fine,” Solus said, his eyes narrowing further. “What do you want, Hythlodaeus?”

“I’m _hurt_ ,” said Hythlodaeus, wincing and putting a hand to his chest. “Can’t I come to see how my friend is doing?”

Solus rolled his eyes. “Out with it. What do you want?”

With their usual song and dance finished, Hythlodaeus straightened up as he pulled his phone out of his coat pocket. “I heard from a couple different sources—” He spoke slowly and didn’t look at Solus as he scrolled for something on his phone. “—that _you_ , my dear friend, have been somewhat out of sorts.”

“Out of sorts? Who is saying that?” Solus asked, frowning. 

“Only everyone,” Hythlodaeus laughed lightly. “Even Nabriales noticed.”

“Nabriales? The last time I spoke to him was last week, and that was for _two minutes._ ”

Hythlodaeus seemed to have found what he was looking for—he looked up at him with a grin, but kept his phone held to his breast. “And how out of sorts you must have been for Nabriales to notice in two minutes,” he said, with the sort of irritating laugh that told Solus he was not going to like what came next. “I don’t suppose it has something to do with this, does it?”

Slowly, he held out his phone to show Solus the screen. 

And on it was the selfie from the zoo—the selfsame one he had sent Elidibus to shut him up.

“Where did you get that?!” Solus demanded, and he confusingly found himself fighting to keep his face from burning.

“Elidibus sent it to me about a minute after he received it, asking who that Elezen was,” Hythlodaeus replied.

“What does she have to do with anything?” Solus asked, scowling. “She’s just someone I met at the conference who was willing to indulge me for a moment so I could confuse Elidibus.”

Hythlodaeus let out an appreciative laugh. “Oh, he was certainly confused, well done. I haven’t the slightest idea who she is, of course, although something _did_ stand out to me,” he said, glancing back at the photo on his screen and cocking his head thoughtfully. “You look as though you might have actually _enjoyed_ yourself at the zoo.”

A confusing feeling of vague, indistinct panic filled him. 

“I fail to see the connection between the zoo selfie and Nabriales remarking that I was somehow out of sorts,” Solus said in a huff.

“That much is obvious, my friend.”

Solus narrowed his eyes again.

“Don’t tell me you’re implying what I think you are,” he said slowly, his voice low, incredulous. “I knew her for a _half a day_ , Hythlodaeus.”

“And look how you enjoyed that half a day!” Hythlodaeus replied, grinning. 

“Wh—how are you getting that from _one selfie?_ ” 

“I’ve known you since we were children, lest you forget.” He paused a moment and looked almost sympathetic as the grin on his face softened. “And I also know that you have enjoyed precious little in your life as of late.”

It was true that he didn’t exactly enjoy many things these days and it was true that he _had_ felt some measure of enjoyment at the zoo. But this moment of pause lasted for just that—one moment—and it was quickly replaced by irritation that Hythlodaeus could be so godsdamned presumptuous.

“I could have enjoyed the zoo with anyone,” Solus said, crossing his arms. Hythlodaeus let out a small laugh.

“Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?”

Solus put his hand to his face in frustration. All he wanted this morning was to reply to some emails and leave comments on some code reviews and have a sandwich. He certainly did _not_ want to spend his last unscheduled hour fighting Hythlodaeus and his outlandish claims about a woman he couldn’t have spent more than _four bells_ with.

“Are you bored? Is that why you’re here?” Solus asked, his voice strained. “Not enough drama in those Hingashi shows you’re so fond of? Have you come to entertain yourself by needling me about some throwaway selfie?”

“ _Throwaway selfie_ he says,” Hythlodaeus said wryly. “Why are you fighting me? Isn’t it you yourself who _so often_ reminds me that he doesn’t care what others think of him?”

“I am not _fighting_ you, I just fail to understand how one selfie spiraled into this inane fantasy of yours.” 

The cheeky grin reappeared on Hythlodaeus’ face. 

“So you say.” He fell silent, and for a moment Solus thought that they had finally reached the end of this awful discussion. “You did get her card, didn’t you?”

Solus let out a groan of exasperation and didn’t answer. Hythlodaeus, though, continued looking at him expectantly and without speaking, until the silence between them grew altogether too uncomfortable—

“I did, what of it?”

“...Well?”

“Well _what?!_ ”

Hythlodaeus had the gall to give Solus a disbelieving look. “Well, have you contacted her?” he asked, gesturing at Solus’ computer. 

“Of course not.”

“Why not?”

It was Solus’ turn to give Hythlodaeus a disbelieving look. “Have you not been listening for the past five minutes? I knew her for. _Four. Bells_.”

His unrelentingly cheerful companion was not fazed in the least by this; with an unwavering grin, Hythlodaeus leaned forward to rest his elbows on the desk and give him an impish smile. “People ask for more within less time, my friend.”

Solus felt as though he was going mad.

“I’m not going to contact her!”

“Ah. I see.” Hythlodaeus rest his chin on and hand with a disappointed pout that Solus knew was only for show. “I suppose you didn’t like her after all.”

In this moment, Solus found his tongue momentarily tied.

This moment of hesitation was what ruined him.

A corner of Hythlodaeus’s mouth turned up in silent triumph.

“Well, I need to get going—I’ve a lunch meeting to get to. Don’t work too hard, now,” Hythlodaeus said lightly, glancing at his watch as he got to his feet. It was all Solus could do to keep from slapping the smug smile off Hythlodaeus’ smug face; instead he glared daggers at his alleged friend’s retreating back, and a moment later he found himself alone in his office with the hint of a flush on his cheeks.

* * *

Annaiette had worked in stiff, intensely corporate settings before. Business casual dress code regardless of whether they were client-facing or not, a cocoon of red tape hindering their every move, corporate office drama with people who had very different ideas of fun compared to her, and the distinct lack of foam dart guns.

It was five in the afternoon on the last work day of the week, and she found her drowsy self suddenly pelted by a barrage of foam darts.

She yelped more out of surprise than pain and instantly her drowsiness dissipated, and the sounds of mischievous snickering reached her ears—a quick glance to her left revealed Lyse and D’Zentsa brandishing their dart guns at her.

“This is amazing, I didn’t know you guys had these!” Lyse exclaimed with a grin. D’zentsa nodded in mock reproach.

“Holding out on us, are you?” she said, holding up the rifle-sized dart gun in her hands. 

Lyse was an old friend and training partner, and every so often she came down from the Ala Mhigan Martial Arts gym she ran on the floor above Leve’s office to chat. She held no classes on the last day of the week but left the gym open for members who wished to do freeform training—there must not be anyone at the gym, which meant they must have closed up early. D’zentsa was a rather newer addition to the gym and worked as an assistant instructor a few times a week in between classes at the local community college. O’tchakha—also a student at the college and assistant instructor at the gym—was typically attached to her at the hip but must have had class this afternoon.

“Lyse, you’ve been down here before,” Annaiette laughed. 

She said this despite the fact that the dart guns were a recent development in the office—the latest office obsession that everyone latched onto after Hoary Boulder found a series of tutorials on modding them to shoot harder—and as she laughed, she slowly reached for the dart gun shoved behind one of the monitors on her desk.

In the infinitesimal moment before her hand closed over the handle, Lyse locked eyes with her.

She and Lyse moved in tandem: Annaiette wrenched the dart gun from behind the monitor as she pushed back from her desk as Lyse sidestepped and took aim at her, and in this moment the office exploded with the sounds of toy gun triggers and the gleeful battle cries of her surrounding coworkers. Annaiette found herself beset by her own engineers—a stinging betrayal that she would handle accordingly later—as she unleashed a barrage of darts at Lyse.

The stress and frustration of the week melted away as they—grown adults with very adult jobs with the accompanying adult stresses—indulged in the simple, childish pleasure of a dart gun firefight. Annaiette hadn’t any idea how long this went on and eventually found herself doubled over in uncontrollable laughter under Y’shtola’s desk, nearly unable to reload her gun as she snatched at the darts scattered about the floor—

“HELLO, EVERYONE—AH—PLEASE STOP—THE POLICE ARE HERE!”

Immediately everyone froze, and as one last dart bounced off the window, a horrified silence replaced the sounds of laughter and playful banter. Annaiette slowly got to her feet and found Tataru at the door, dwarfed by the large form of a very familiar police officer.

“Sorry, everyone,” said Slafborn with an apologetic smile as he scratched the back of his head. “There was a report of people with guns, so we had to investigate...”

“They’re just toys...” said Arenvald in confusion. Annaiette couldn’t blame him—he was relatively new and they hadn’t had the police called on them in quite a while.

“I know, I know...The report came from—ah—across the street, so we knew to check first before sending in the real response team,” Slafborn replied.

A collective groan filled the air. 

Across the street were the temporary offices of a property development firm that had their dirty eyes fixed on their building and were doing their damndest to get them out. A sleazy Lalafell by the name of Yuyuhase called the police on them for ridiculous, trifling matters every so often (such as one time where he reported they were having a wild, raucous party when they were simply having a perfectly calm barbeque outside with the tiniest charcoal grills Annaiette had ever seen). They were reasonably sure that this development firm was the infamous Teledji Adeledji extending his grubby hands out of Ul’dah.

“Well, ah—stop that for tonight,” said Slafborn, stepping forward to ensure that he was visible in the window before waggling a facetiously commanding finger at them. He raised his eyebrows at them with a roguish grin before turning to leave. “Have a good one!”

Slafborn left a heavy silence in his wake as the collective employees (and friends) of Leve considered the state of their lives.

Hoary Boulder coughed and let out a small laugh.

“Well...does anyone want to go to the pub?”

* * *

Solus Galvus stared at his screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **tl;dr: can't hide shit from hyth. also, fucking teledji**
> 
> i couldn't write this without [zguavi](http://twitter.com/ZGuavi) 😭😭😭😭😭 im love 
> 
> SORRY IT WAS A BIT DELAYED life continues to punch me in the face


	5. Chapter 5

It was the normal routine for Solus to plod home from the tram stop in the darkness of the evening, drop his bag by the front door (gently, if his laptop was inside), and flop onto the couch to stare numbly into nothingness, maybe find the energy to have a meal (sometimes takeout, sometimes bread with kukuru butter, rarely something he cooked himself), until such a time where he was able to gather himself enough to make his way to his bed. 

This evening was not so different. 

He made his way home from the tram stop, (gently) dropped his bag by the door, and flopped on the couch.

However, Hythlodaeus had succeeded—as he somehow _always_ did—in leaving him with inescapable, nagging thoughts that haunted him for the entire day. And so _this_ evening, rather than stare numbly into nothingness he found himself staring at his phone.

One godsdamned selfie shouldn’t bother him. It ought to be easy to delete it.

And yet here he was. 

Bothered. 

Not deleting.

There was nothing to be gained by staring at it. He very firmly told himself that he had no intention of emailing that woman, and he also very firmly told himself that it was utterly absurd to think that she had given him a second thought after she took her leave on the back of a young man’s motorbike. 

And yet here he was.

A sudden knock on the front door startled him out of his thoughts—it was _almost_ a welcome distraction until he realized the only person who would dare arrive unannounced was Hythlodaeus himself. With a heavy sigh, he pulled himself off the couch and made his way to the door. He had a passing thought to just leave Hythlodaeus outside, but deep down he had _some_ measure of decency and knew he couldn’t do that—something that Hythlodaeus knew well.

“What do you want?” Solus said wearily when he opened the door to reveal a grinning Hythlodaeus.

“I was hungry,” said Hythlodaeus brightly, holding up a bag of takeout containers. “I might have picked up something for you as well.”

Solus sighed in exasperation as he stepped aside to let him in; he was loath to admit that his friend’s presence was somewhat of a comfort, but this was a fact already well-known to Hythlodaeus.

Without further preamble, Hythlodaeus busied himself at the coffee table, pulling out and opening the containers of Doman food that he’d brought with him. “Yours has fried rice,” he said, gesturing at a container on the table as he took the other and made himself comfortable on the couch. The smell of warm food filled the air, and it was then that Solus’ body remembered that it hadn’t had anything to eat since the bag of popoto crisps in the late afternoon.

“Thank you,” said Solus as he took the remaining container and sank onto the couch beside Hythlodaeus. As frustrating as the man could be, Solus wasn’t sure what he would do or where he would be without him. But as with all things Hythlodaeus, it was rare that his kindness came without some manner of mischief, and Solus was quite sure he knew just what his friend was here to do.

“Did you hear about the debacle in Building 4?” Hythlodaeus asked lightly. Solus glanced up from his food to examine Hythlodaeus’ face and found a relaxed smile—the debacle must not have been too disastrous if he wasn’t particularly gleeful about it. 

Small talk first, then.

“Hmm. Something about a small fire?”

Building 4 was their newest building (relatively speaking) that housed the games teams—both the console development team and one of their first-party studios. Both of which tended to play fast and loose with their tech. 

“Evidently the machine they use to process audio decided it was no longer for this world and just burst into flames,” Hythlodaeus said. “A friend told me they were less concerned about the fire and more concerned that they wouldn’t be able to process audio in time to cut a build for cert. They have just the one machine.”

Solus scoffed. “Typical. We have a massive build farm and they’re using _one_ machine to process audio.”

“Too late to fix it now, I suppose, now that they’re on their seventh release,” Hythlodaeus laughed. “I’m told the funeral for the audio machine is to be held next week.”

“And will you be in attendance?” Solus asked, smirking. Hythlodaeus gave him a solemn nod in return.

“I must support my friend in his time of need.”

“How kind of you.”

Hythlodaeus grinned.

Talk of the audio machine soon led to non-work-related talk about an upcoming patch for a game Hythlodaeus was currently hooked on, where he was looking forward to some new raid something or other that was slated to come with said patch. Solus didn’t often play games these days, but he did somewhat enjoy watching Hythlodaeus play when they spent the rare weekend in each other’s company. Hythlodaeus was the sort who enjoyed purposefully killing his teammates during less-serious runs and Solus found it entertaining so long as he wasn’t the target.

“So. Did you email her?” Hythlodaeus asked during a lull in conversation.

Video game talk had gone on for long enough that Solus very nearly let down his guard. He hadn’t completely, though, and shot a reproachful glare at his friend. 

“No, and I’m not going to.”

“I don’t see that you have anything to lose here,” said Hythlodaeus before popping a shrimp into his mouth.

“I don’t need her spreading lies about how creepy old Solus Galvus is,” he replied with a disgruntled frown. “There are enough rumors about me as it is.”

“You’ve been relegated to email hell as much as I these days, and I am quite confident that you would not send her a creepy one.”

A brief pause.

“I don’t see what she could want with _me_. I expect she would much prefer someone younger who does things like ride motorbikes.”

Hythlodaeus snorted in amused disbelief. “Motorbikes? Where did thatcome from?” 

Solus frowned with his eyes on his food and said nothing, but he could feel Hythlodaeus’s eyes boring through his head.

“I thought you still had a good decade before your mid-life crisis,” came Hythlodaeus’s wry voice. “Was she talking about how people who ride motorbikes are handsome and dashing or some such?”

“No,” Solus said finally, though he still kept his eyes on his food. “A friend of hers arrived on a motorbike to pick her up from the zoo, and she hopped onto the back like she did it all the time.”

He heard Hythlodaeus snickering and pointedly continued staring at his food.

“The fact that she’s comfortable on motorbikes doesn’t mean anything, my friend.”

Silence.

“...I’m much too old now.”

Hythlodaeus only snickered louder. “One: no, and two: I should remind you that she appears to be an Elezen—unless she told you her age, there’s no way to know. She could very well be older than us.”

Solus answered by taking a too-big mouthful of rice and sullenly chewing in silence.

“So many _excuses_ ,” Hythlodaeus drawled dramatically as he reached over to put his empty takeout container on the coffee table. He raised his arms to stretch before laying his legs across Solus’ lap and settling his back against the armrest with his eyes shut. “The last time you were like this, you had a whole host of excuses, too.”

Solus bristled but couldn’t quite move with Hythlodaeus’ legs across his lap. “That was years ago,” he said irately. Hythlodaeus cracked an eye open as a grin formed on his face.

“Nearly twenty now. I should also remind you that you hesitated for so _unbelievably_ long that he dropped off the face the star. And _that_ time you didn’t even have his name.”

He sideyed Hythlodaeus with a scowl but said nothing. It was true that there had been someone twenty years ago, and it was true that he’d lost his chance when that someone inexplicably disappeared. He hoped that he and their little open source group had simply done something to offend him and cause him to cut ties, because the ghastly alternative was that something terrible had befallen him. But it wasn’t worth thinking about anymore—they were nothing more than a collection of repository commits and chat logs now and there was naught he could do about it.

Hythlodaeus wiggled a leg to get his attention. 

“So, are you going to contact her?”

“No.”

“You, my friend, will never get anywhere with that attitude,” said Hythlodaeus, waggling a finger at him. “At least tell me her name, then.”

Solus sighed. 

“Annaiette.”

“Cute. Where does she work?” 

He narrowed his eyes. “If you think I’m going to tell you that…”

“Fine, fine,” Hythlodaeus laughed. “What does she do, though? Some sort of engineer, I’m assuming?”

“Her card said full stack and product lead, but who knows what that means? We didn’t talk about work apart from the fact that I was hiding from Elidibus’ inane team building event.”

The reaction to his words was more extreme than expected, and he had to hold his food out of harm’s way lest Hythlodaeus kick it out of his hands in his haste to sit up. 

“You didn’t talk about work?”

“No. Considering we were at the _zoo_ , we talked about the animals, mostly.”

“Hades.” 

There was a fire in Hythlodaeus’ eyes and a fire in the way he spoke Solus’ true name.

“You should email her.”

His friend was—for once—incredibly serious, and Solus found his resolve to not contact Annaiette wavering. But the uncontrollable reflex to dig his heels in and not let him win quickly took hold, and he averted his gaze with a frown.

“I’m not.”

The silence between them was a clear sign that it was now he who was frustrating Hythlodaeus, a fact made more obvious by the brief and subtle tensing of Hythlodaeus’ legs before he pulled them from Solus’ lap. 

“You said that last time, too, and look where it got you.”

Solus narrowed his eyes at Hythlodaeus as he stuffed the rest of his shrimps into his mouth. Hythlodaeus stared at him for a few quiet moments, during which Solus did his very best to look very serious and slowly chew while making eye contact—this soon had the desired effect, and Hythlodaeus snorted in laughter before easing back against the backrest and giving his arm a weary but playful shove.

“You are hopeless, Hades.”

* * *

Hythlodaeus took a seat at his home computer and smiled as he opened a new tab.

“Now...who _are_ you?”

* * *

The universe was pulling apart at the seams.

Or at least, that’s what it felt like to Annaiette on her third day in the hell of tracking down a bug in their production environment. It checked all the boxes on the Horrible Bug Checklist: it happened only in the live environment and not in test ones, it did not repro 100% of the time, the repro steps themselves were an awful, awful mess of hacks to get oneself into the right state to reproduce the bug, and perhaps the worst one—a year ago she’d forseen this problem but had to make the call to proceed in spite of it in order to meet their milestones.

“How do you like that tech debt now, Annaiette?” she muttered gloomily. She didn’t normally handle these sorts of issues these days, but she was the one most familiar with this particular system (since she wrote most of it, after all), and all the other engineers were entangled in similar bugs that had surfaced once their redesigned architecture was put through its paces in the real world.

Her brain was full of sludge now and she was doggedly dragging herself through it. She’d already talked Y’shtola and Moenbryda through her intended fix and they had agreed that it _should_ work, but they were all experienced enough to know that there were all sorts of ways a Should Work fix could go fantastically wrong. And that was just the fix itself; she would still need to _test_ it, which was going to be one last pain in her arse before she could call it done.

She hit the Build button and pushed herself away from her desk. “Snack time,” she said when Moenbryda glanced up from her computer questioningly.

As she headed for the kitchen, she stretched her back out and grimaced when she heard her spine cracking—a consequence of sitting at her desk for nearly three uninterrupted bells. She found herself torn between being a responsible adult and having fruit as a snack or getting a head start on the end-of-the-week drinking and taking a bottle of beer from the small refrigerator filled with it. The beer would certainly calm her nerves and there was a _small_ chance that her code could potentially be better for it, but it was only three in the afternoon...

The sound of small footsteps drew her attention from this dilemma and she found Tataru entering the kitchen with a box of snacks.

“Hello, Annaiette!” said Tataru cheerfully. When Annaiette could only give her a weary smile and half-wave in response, she visibly stifled a small laugh. “Oh, you look like you’ve had a day. Fortunately, I think I’ve just the thing! Help yourself to what’s in the other fridge—it’s a good time for it.”

Annaiette’s eyes widened and immediately snapped to the _other_ fridge in the kitchen—the small, special fridge that they were forbidden from opening except with Tataru’s explicit permission. The only person completely banned from opening the special fridge was Alphinaud, after that fateful day he gave nearly all the sangria and Tataru’s homemade cake to visiting potential investors. For a while he was banned from even partaking in any of Tataru’s homemade treats, but nowadays he was allowed to have some so long as he was not the one opening the fridge—not that it mattered at the moment, since he was still working on getting his PhD and was away in Sharlayan for the school term.

Without a word so as not to risk any ban, no matter how slim the chances, Annaiette opened the special fridge to find three pitchers of blood red sangria filled with chopped apples and oranges. 

“Tataru, I love you,” Annaiette said, her voice nearly a sob as she pulled one of the pitchers from the fridge.

“Oh, you,” Tataru replied, but the grin on her face as she refilled the snack bins on the shelves made it clear that she had expected that and was quite pleased with herself.

It wasn’t long before Tataru summoned the rest of the office to the kitchen to have sangria—the kitchen was quickly filled with cheerful chatter and exhausted but smiling faces that had been on the verge of despair not ten minutes ago. Annaiette found herself sitting at one of the kitchen tables with the other engineers as they talked about their weekend plans. She didn’t have anything of interest to say as her only plans were to sleep in and visit her favorite bakery—eventually she found herself absently looking at work email for no readily-apparent reason.

“What are you doing? Waiting for something?” Moenbryda asked in amusement the third time she unlocked her phone to glance at her email for two seconds before locking it again. 

“Erm...I don’t actually know,” she laughed. It wasn’t a lie—she wasn’t sure why she was so compelled to look at her email, especially mid afternoon before the weekend on a day where she received surprisingly few emails.

“Right,” Moenbryda said, arching an eyebrow with an amused smile. She didn’t press the matter, but Annaiette wouldn’t have known what to tell her if she had; her email was giving her some amount of anxiety that she didn’t understand, but hoped it would be alleviated by a long, lazy weekend _not_ looking at it.

She sipped at her sangria and listened for a few minutes as the others got into a heated discussion about the latest episode of a television show, before peering down once more at her very uneventful phone only to find a message notification waiting for her.

“Huh, who is this?” she murmured. Moenbryda glanced over curiously, and Annaiette pushed her phone closer to give her a better view.

“‘Wespes?’” Moenbryda laughed incredulously as she read the messages. “Looks like some kid who wants your advice.”

“Strange that they’d come to _me_ for advice but it seems harmless enough. I guess we’ll see if they get weird and try to link me to some porn site.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **tl;dr: solus you shouldn't have even given hyth a name he's too good at this**
> 
> so zguavi used to work at a place that had sangria days relatively often which went in **THE SPECIAL FRIDGE** and i thought it was the best thing ever so HERE IT IS AHHAHA


	6. Chapter 6

Solus was having a very good day.

His most important meeting of the day had been incredibly productive and a long time coming: it was Fandaniel’s last, desperate attempt to out-maneuver him in setting new AnyderSoft policies regarding user data collection. For the past year or so, Fandaniel had become increasingly aggressive in campaigning to expand the scope of data collected from their users, for the purposes of extremely targeted marketing and to also sell the data to third parties—both of which Solus found reprehensible for many reasons. He’d been content to quietly and calmly refute all of Fandaniel’s arguments for the past year (because it drove the man absolutely mad), but Fandaniel had finally reached the threshold that Elidibus deemed acceptable for Solus to let go of any restraint: when Fandaniel finally, finally suggested that Solus was too conservative, that his technical skill was lacking, and that both these things were holding AnyderSoft back from its true potential.

And thus Solus spent a very enjoyable hour tearing apart anything and everything that Fandaniel brought to the table. Particularly enjoyable was the part where he talked about record profits in one of the fledgling technologies that Solus had a heavy hand in developing—the subject of which he had already given several talks about (such as his talk at the Ishgard conference). 

Another fact which drove Fandaniel absolutely mad.

That he had such a good day only meant, however, that something to spoil it would soon round the corner.

And indeed, as he was rounding the corner to the kitchen on his floor for a cup of coffee he nearly ran face-first into Hythlodaeus, who after nearly a fortnight of silence was almost certainly on his way to beleaguer him _again_ about emailing the woman from the conference.

“Fancy running into you here, my friend,” said Hythlodaeus with a cheeky grin. Solus was in a good enough mood that the corner of his mouth turned up in a half-smile.

“It’s almost as if my office is on this floor,” Solus replied wryly. 

That Hythlodaeus fell in step with him on his way to the kitchen only confirmed his suspicions.

“All right, why are you here?” Solus asked, leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed as he waited for the coffee machine to do its work. “Come to talk about that email that I’m not going to send?”

Hythlodaeus let out an impressed laugh as he tapped his coffee settings into the other coffee machine. “My, you’re in a good mood. But no, I actually didn’t. Since you’ve brought it up, though...”

“No,” Solus said flatly. “Why _are_ you here, then?”

“A little colibri might have told me you had a field day with little Daniel,” Hythlodaeus said, his grin taking a decidedly mischievous turn. “I wanted to get the details directly from the man himself.”

Solus’s smile grew slightly wider. “Pity you weren’t there, it was very therapeutic. I’ll tell you more in my office.” 

Sound carried far too well in this building—an oversight Elidibus kicked himself over for a good while—so discretion was important, especially with gossip and _especially_ with people as high-ranked as themselves. So instead, whilst they waited for the machines to finish their single servings of middling coffee—good enough in a pinch but not as good as a more traditional coffee maker—Hythlodaeus chattered about the new raid that had just patched into his game, and how he accidentally (“accidentally”) caused a wipe for 24 people with one errant laser. 

Soon enough they were back in Solus’ office, coffee in hand and the door safely shut.

“So! Give me all the details,” Hythlodaeus asked gleefully.

“The meeting started with the most blatant attempt at politicking possible,” Solus began. “You know how Daniel gets once he’s been backed into a corner. It was just a matter of waiting for him to press the right button, which he did today. Quite early on in the meeting, actually, which left me with about 45 minutes.”

“Blatant politicking,” Hythlodaeus repeated, his grin growing wider. “Then Elidibus and Nabriales were there at his behest.”

Solus nodded with a triumphant smirk. “They were. He almost managed to pull Lahabrea into it, but fortunately for Lahabrea, he is out of town.”

As he related the details of the meeting to Hythlodaeus—down to the diagrams and charts and figures that Fandaniel had used—his friend’s grin grew ever wider, until finally he was cackling in his seat as Solus described the look on Fandaniel’s face when the meeting reached its scheduled end.

“You’d have thought he was holding back an enormous shit. Serves him right for even thinking he could drag me through the mud,” Solus concluded as he took a long sip from his mug.

“I don’t know what he expected,” Hythlodaeus said, wiping a tear from his eye. “Honestly, dragging Elidibus into it…”

“Daniel may be...acceptable...at most things, but tact is not one of them.”

Hythlodaeus nodded in agreement and the both of them fell silent as they sipped at their coffee.

“So!” Hythlodaeus said brightly. “Since you brought it up yourself, have you considered sending that email yet?”

A frown was all Solus had in reply.

“I really do think it will be worth your while to at least have coffee with her,” Hythlodaeus said reproachfully.

Suspicious.

“And why do you think that?” Solus asked, narrowing his eyes. 

“Well, you tolerated her of your own volition for _four whole bells_ ,” Hythlodaeus said with a smile. “When was the last time you did that with anyone?”

Frustration bubbled in Solus’ chest; Hythlodaeus was still on this even weeks later, and he knew Hythlodaues would not stop until he sent that godsdamned email or came completely undone and unleashed his rage upon him.

And perhaps it was because he was still riding the last vestiges of the good mood high, or perhaps it was because his rage was currently spent after letting loose and dismantling Fandaniel’s distasteful efforts...

...But Solus felt something within him snap.

“Fine _. Fine!_ If you are so hellbent on having me make a fool of myself…!” Solus said irately as he jabbed the keyboard to unlock his computer.

But despite this show, he found himself hesitating after clicking into the drafts folder of his email.

Hythlodaeus silently watched him, head cocked slightly to the side with an unwavering smile.

The sight of that smile brought the frustration back—it took hold and he wanted nothing more than to get this all over with—

And a moment later he was horrified to find that after everything—

He had clicked the Send button.

Hythlodaeus raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. “That was certainly fast.” He smiled sweetly. “Did you...did you perhaps have an email drafted this whole time?” 

Solus very pointedly kept his eyes on his drafts folder, now minus one email.

“Well, I for one am proud of you,” said Hythlodaeus, as though he hadn’t just beleaguered him into a corner.

He narrowed his eyes at his friend once more, but at the very least he now felt a measure of relief. It was done, he’d probably not get any manner of reply which was honestly for the best. And the icing on the cake: Hythlodaeus would soon stop pestering him about sending the blasted email and the both of them could move on with their lives.

Solus was most certainly relieved to put this behind him, and he most certainly did _not_ spend the rest of the afternoon with nagging feelings of dread and regret in the back of his mind.

And he _especially_ did not agree to go out for drinks with Hythlodaeus in order to distract himself from the dread and regret that was very definitely not happening at all.

* * *

Annaiette Verdeleaux stared at her screen.

“Huh,” she said to herself.

“All right there?”

She gave a start at the sound of Moenbryda’s voice—she thought she was the only one currently in the engineering corner but she found Moenbryda returning from a coffee break in the kitchen.

“Hmm. What do you make of this, Moenbryda?” Annaiette asked, gesturing at her screen as Moenbryda returned to her desk.

Moenbryda leaned over to read the email, and as her eyes darted across the screen, Annaiette could see the smile on her face growing ever wider.

“What’s His Face wants to have a chat, does he?” she said, grinning and giving Annaiette a sidelong glance.

“I don’t see why AnyderSoft would care about what we do here, everything is relatively standard,” Annaiette said, crossing her arms with a furrowed brow. She looked up in confusion when Moenbryda let out a snort of amusement.

“You’ve missed the mark by just a bit, Annaiette,” Moenbrdya laughed. “I think the important part is that he ‘enjoyed your company at the zoo’, not Leve tech.”

Annaiette gave her an incredulous look before letting out a laugh. “What? He just spent the afternoon with me because he was hiding from executives. And perhaps because I gave him some dried fruit.”

“Basically friends already, then.” 

There was a grin on Moenbrdya’s face that Annaiette didn’t like. It was imminently clear what that grin implied, but Annaiette couldn’t help but be skeptical—she couldn’t fathom what a man like Solus Galvus would care to see in someone like her.

But neither could she fathom what interest he could have in Leve.

So there she sat, paralyzed by confusion.

“If you liked the time at the zoo, then it couldn’t hurt to see what he has to say,” Moenbryda said after a few minutes of silence as she scrolled through her email. “You make friends with everyone, I’m sure it’ll be just fine.”

Words of protest nearly made it out of Annaiette’s mouth, but a passing thought held them back: Solus Galvus _did_ make a peculiar, offhand comment about how he was pestered about not having friends...

“Well,” Annaiette began, drumming her fingers on her desk in mild uncertainty, “I suppose you’re right. Can’t hurt to have more friends.”

“Mmhmm. _Friends_.”

“Moenbryda—!”

An uncontrollable warmth began creeping up her skin, and Annaiette silently thanked the Twelve that the impending sunset meant the darkness obscured any hint of it.

Fortunately the feeling quickly passed, and she looked back to the email and clicked Reply.

* * *

It just so happened that Annaiette had requested the next day off.

Would that her day off was to do something fun and enjoyable, though. Instead, it was the polar opposite of fun: a trip to the dreaded Bureau of the Secretariat in order to renew her (seldom-used) driver’s license. As was customary for these trips, she’d made her way to Downtown Mor Dhona at an unholy hour, only to find that the unholy hour had not been unholy enough to beat the crowd.

There was, though, something planned for the day that she hoped would be fun. 

AnyderSoft headquarters were located in Downtown (and in fact were only a few blocks away), and she’d been pleasantly surprised to find that a busy man such as Solus Galvus actually had a schedule flexible enough for an outside coffee break at the ambiguous hour of Whenever-She-Gets-Out-of-the-Bureau o’clock. She _hoped_ to be finished with Bureau hell by midmorning, but the line was moving so slowly that she had little confidence in that being the case.

She absently played games on her phone to pass the time before she finally forced herself off to keep from obsessively pulling for new characters. It was just as well, though, because that Wespes? person had sent her a message at about half ten. When Wespes had first contacted her weeks ago, it was to get help deciding whether next year’s Leylines conference would be worth the exorbitant cost of the general attendance pass and it turned out that they were otherwise quite enjoyable to talk to. They talked on and off since that initial conversation and at one point got on the subject of side projects, which eventually led to talk about artificial intelligence—a subject that Annaiette had been quite fond of but put aside shortly before she was hired at Leve, and it had been a nice reminder of something she once enjoyed.

Wespes didn’t have much to say today; they related an amusing incident in their work kitchen where a frazzled intern had accidentally spilled a bin of coffee grounds all over the floor, before simply wishing her a good day (accompanied by three coffee emojis) and falling silent.

It was nearly noon by the time Annaiette’s turn came at the licensing counter. She had made an effort to look _slightly_ nicer than usual for the license photo; on normal days she didn’t do anything special with her face or hair, but today she went the extra two ilms to put on eyeliner and style her hair rather than shove it into the customary hair tie. But these half-hearted efforts turned out to be for naught—after she had her photo taken, she was mildly disgruntled to find that despite the big smile (and eyeliner, and hair), she _still_ looked like she had languished for half the day at the Bureau. Because she had. But she hadn’t wanted her license photo to _show_ that. 

Regardless, it was finally over with, and she let out an audible groan of relief when she exited the Bureau doors, reveling in the feel of the sun on her skin.

Because she was loath to leave the sun after spending hours in the too-cold Bureau building, she found a sunny spot out of the way of passersby and pulled her phone from her pocket. She silently laughed at one of the notifications on her lock screen (“Are you alive?” read a message from Wespes), before tapping into her email to let Solus Galvus know she had finally escaped the Bureau. 

With the message sent, she pocketed her phone and glanced up and down the street to orient herself. Annaiette didn’t frequent Downtown so it took her a moment to work out just where she was, but soon she was on her way to the agreed-upon café. The sidewalks were quite crowded—it was lunch hour in Downtown, after all—and the more people she weaved by, the more she wondered if there would even be anywhere to sit by the time she got there.

But it seemed that she didn’t need to be worried about that at all: as she neared the cafe and peered through the window, she caught sight of What’s His Face himself beside an empty table as he unslung a laptop bag from his shoulders.

“Hello!” Annaiette said brightly and suddenly as he was in the midst of taking a seat—partly because she was in quite a good mood now that she was finished with the Bureau, and partly to see if he could be surprised.

She was rewarded by a subtle twitch of his shoulders, but (somewhat disappointingly) the face that greeted her when he turned around was one that was perfectly untroubled by her sudden appearance.

“Ah, good morning,” Solus said as he held out his hand. He had the same leisurely air she remembered from the conference and zoo. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“Likewise,” Annaiette replied warmly as she shook his hand. “So, coffee then?” 

“Or any other beverage you so choose,” said Solus with a nod. And with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, he added, “There are at least two.”

Annaiette grinned as they squeezed past other tables to get to the ordering line and took their place at the end. “Maybe even three,” she said as she peered up at the menu, which included the usual assortment of coffee, espresso, and other drinks that definitely numbered more than three. “So, not busy today? I was honestly surprised you didn’t need a more concrete time than ‘whenever I get out of the Bureau.’”

“Ah. As luck would have it, my schedule today isn’t quite as heavy as it normally is.” A brief look of either anxiety or despair or both flashed across Solus’ face at the mention of his schedule—Annaiette supposed someone as important as him was constantly booked for meetings most days.

“Well, that’s good,” she replied cheerfully. “Especially since I made it out of the Bureau unscathed.”

The corner of his mouth turned up in amusement. “One never escapes from the Bureau unscathed—you simply do not see the scars it leaves upon your soul.”

“Is that so?” Annaiette laughed wryly. “My soul must be all broken up then, considering how often I’ve had to go there these past couple of years.”

“It’s quite tragic, really.”

But further silliness was forestalled when Annaiette’s turn at the counter came up. She took one last glance at the menu board and ordered an espresso con panna and a panini, and had to carefully resist the very alluring, fresh banana bread in the display case.

“I know this is just supposed to be coffee—I’m really hungry but don’t feel like you need to spend your whole lunch here,” Annaiette said apologetically, glancing over her shoulder at Solus. He gave an offhanded shrug.

“I could use some food myself. I’ll not have time this afternoon.”

“Will you be paying together, Mr. Galvus?” asked the cashier. 

“Oh—! No, I’ll pay for m—” Annaiette began.

“Yes.”

Annaiette was mortified to find that Solus was already passing a credit card to the cashier; it was startling how quickly and effortlessly his fingers had pulled the card from the wallet that all but materialized in his hands out of his back pocket, and the only suitable explanation she could think of was that he was well-versed in the art of battling people to pay restaurant bills due to either business or friends or family or all three.

“And for you, sir?”

“I’d like a cappuccino and the dodo panini,” he told the cashier, who dutifully tapped the order into the register.

“Of course. So that’ll be an espresso con panna, a cappuccino, a bacon panini, and a dodo panini. Your total comes out to be…”

Solus finished paying and led her back to their table with an amused half-smile. “It’s the least I could do,” he said simply.

And before she knew what she was saying, she blurted out, “I’ve got the next one, then.” 

If Solus found this at all strange or untoward, he didn’t look it and merely nodded as he settled into his seat. His reaction, though—or lack thereof—made Annaiette wonder if her antics had already given him reason to not associate with her ever again.

“So...Annaiette,” Solus began almost hesitantly, as though testing her name on his tongue, “I’ve been quite curious—what sort of work do you do at Leve? I’m afraid I wasn’t sure what to fully make of ‘full stack developer and product lead.’”

“Oh, that. I don’t blame you—it’s just so hard to put a title on what I do. You know how it is at startups, I’m sure,” Annaiette said with the slightest hint of a nervous laugh. “Most of my work used to be backend work, but lately I’ve been tangled up overseeing the overall ecosystem.”

It wasn’t nearly as exciting as it sounded—she essentially was now in charge of wrangling their ragtag group of engineers into making something functional without hating themselves and the codebase _too_ much—but she felt a bit self-conscious about her work and couldn’t help but try to dress up her role in the presence of an incredibly smart engineer. She was also sure, however, that despite her efforts he’d see through it immediately.

“That certainly sounds familiar, yes,” Solus said with a knowing nod. “It sounds as though things are going well for Leve, then.”

“I can’t complain! We’re doing well enough to justify a redesign of our microservice architecture,” Annaiette said. She grinned. “It’s why I went to your panel, actually. We’ve got more users than ever, but—ah—not, you know, millions of them.”

“Progress is progress, is it not?” 

Annaiette wasn’t sure if his face was one of boredom or perhaps even disappointment; she smiled and nodded but only felt even more self-conscious than before—the feeling was foreign as there were few things that made her feel this self-conscious, but it was slowly sinking in that she was here before the man who helped raise _the_ AnyderSoft into the monolith it was today...

It was a great relief when a waitress arrived with their drinks, and she immediately busied herself with her espresso con panna, stirring the great dollop of whipped cream a bit more thoroughly than she normally would have.

“We’ve progressed enough that playing with machine learning techniques is very relevant, so that’s fun,” she continued as she stirred her anxieties into her espresso.

At the mention of machine learning, Solus visibly perked up. “Oh? Something you enjoy, then?” he asked as he took a sip of his cappuccino.

“I do! My last real work with it was just a hobby project in college, though...Happy to get into it again, and this time I get paid to do it.”

Solus made a small noise of interest into his cup. 

“Are you just out of school, then?” he asked. Annaiette raised her eyebrows in disbelief before letting out an amused, unrestrained laugh.

“You flatter me, but no, that was maybe fifteen years ago. I’m older than people often think.”

It was now Solus’ turn to look mildly surprised. “That’s quite a while to put it aside. Did you tire of it for a time?”

“Ah, no. I had some life...events...throw a wrench in things, and worked all sorts of odd jobs after that until I stumbled my way into Leve. And then I was so busy that I hadn’t the energy to work on side projects—they weren’t doing well at the time.”

“Oh, was their recovery your doing?” Solus asked, shifting in his seat and sitting up straighter in interest. “I recall things were quite dire for a time.”

“It wasn’t just me, we all got the collective shite together to keep things running,” she said, waving his words away. “No heroics or anything—I was just an extra pair of hands to prop them up.”

“Just the sort of thing a hero would say,” he said over the rim of his cup with a smirk.

Annaiette certainly didn’t consider herself any sort of hero during her early days working with Leve...His tone, though, was not mocking despite the sarcasm, so she was more than happy to further the nonsense. “Ah yes, it’s me the hero. You’ve worked it out, damn it all,” she laughed, grinning. “Don’t tell anyone or you’ll blow my cover.”

“Your secret is safe with me, hero,” said Solus solemnly, nodding as he put his hand over his heart.

“What about you?” Annaiette asked when she realized she’d just been talking about herself the entire time. “I imagine your day must be full of heroics, considering the...the everything of AnyderSoft.”

Solus shrugged and put his hands up in a sort of defeated exasperation. “I’m more the villain than the hero nowadays,” he said with a huff of amusement. “But we’d have crashed and burned a thousand thousand times over if I let the people proceed with whatever flavor of the month, so-called revolutionary framework they fixate on that would solve two problems and create a hundred more. Or let them go through with that bone-breaking refactor that they _guarantee_ won’t take longer than a year and most _certainly_ will not be disruptive for our ship dates at all.”

He let out a long-suffering sigh, and Annaiette stifled a laugh at the sight of him—he looked about three malms past finished with all the aforementioned people he spent his time exerting his villainy upon.

“And what does the villain Solus Galvus get up to when not crushing poor engineers underfoot?”

Curiously, he seemed halfway between surprised and confused by her question and took a moment to think on his answer. “I don’t often have time these days,” he said eventually, and his eyes flicked briefly to the side as though looking for an out, “but when I do, I play games.”

Solus had an impeccable mahjong face but that tiny eye flick had given him away. Annaiette had to stifle another laugh. “Well, that sounds fun,” she said brightly. “What kind?”

“A friend manages to—pull me into MMOs every now and again,” said Solus, casually easing back into his chair as he took a sip from his mug. “What about you? You certainly seem like the gaming sort.”

“Well, what better medium for further heroics?” Annaiette laughed, grinning and cheekily flexing an arm.

A waitress arrived with their sandwiches as she was in the midst of flexing and she very nearly would have punched a plate out of her hands had the waitress not been so agile. Annaiette apologized profusely to the Lalafellin woman as her face warmed in embarrassment—she stole a quick glance across the table and found that a smile had appeared on Solus’ face whilst he busied himself with his plate and utensils. 

“You didn’t see that,” she said, grinning despite herself.

“All I see is this sandwich.” He didn’t look up from his sandwich and the cheese stretching between its two halves as he separated them, but his smile persisted nonetheless.

Annaiette spent the next half bell chattering about video games and eventually side projects (which the both of them had few of). She didn’t normally like to talk quite this much, but Solus seemed somewhat ill at ease talking about hobbies—he seemed perfectly forthcoming with amusing, sarcastic quips, but she kept finding herself casually and subtly deflected in other directions in a way that made her unsure if he was doing it deliberately. It wouldn’t surprise her in the least if he hadn’t any time for hobbies so after the first few deflections she tried to steer clear of the topic of his, and neither did she wish to pester him with endless questions about his work so she did her best to not do that either. Regardless, it was still a pleasant time and he didn’t look _terribly_ bored, so there was that.

“I do miss all the silly conversations to be had with the people I used to work with,” Annaiette began after a brief silence whilst they both took the time to eat. “I had one internet friend who’d go on and on into the night. I’m a bit of a night owl myself but I never did figure out how his brain kept working at that speed at three in the morning.”

“Ah, one of those,” Solus said, nodding knowingly. “I know them well. Suffice it to say that I, too, have had little success in learning their secrets.”

“Is that so?” said Annaiette in surprise. “I’d have thought you would be one for the late nights engrossed in work.”

His smile had a hint of a smirk. “Certainly, when I was much younger. I am far too old and frail for such antics now.” 

At this, Annaiette raised her eyebrows incredulously. “If you’re old and frail, you certainly don’t look it,” she chuckled. She almost added that she thought his shoulders looked very strong, but she quickly caught herself before she opened her mouth—she’d said that sort of thing in the past and had it end in generally bad ways, most of which were the loss of a new friend. 

“ _Secretly_ old and frail, which is perhaps the worst,” he said dramatically.

“Ah yes, you’re the worst. Clearly.” Annaiette nodded solemnly but quickly snorted in amusement when Solus nodded along.

He opened his mouth to say something but was distracted by a notification on his watch.

“My apologies.” His voice held a ten-tonze weight, it seemed. “I hate to leave so suddenly but I’m afraid my presence has been requested at an upcoming meeting.” He looked rather put out by the prospect, but Annaiette couldn’t blame him—their short coffee break had turned into a much longer lunch and she was quite certain he had more important things to be doing.

“It’s completely fine!” Annaiette said brightly as he down the rest of his glass of water. “It was nice to meet up with you again.”

“Likewise.” He shouldered his laptop bag and held out his hand. “What’s His Face found it a pleasure.”

Annaiette raised her eyebrows in mild disbelief before letting out a loud, incredulous laugh and shaking his hand. 

“Good to hear. Have a good rest of your day, What’s Your Face.”

“Unlikely,” he said over his shoulder as he sidled out of the dining area.

“Do your best, then,” Annaiette called.

She grinned when she caught sight of the smirk on his face as he turned and gave a nonchalant wave on his way out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **tl;dr: even fantasy DMV sucks**
> 
> brain isn't working but ilu guys <3


	7. Chapter 7

Most AnyderSoft people knew those such as Solus Galvus had precious little time for frivolous meetings—most people who would have reason to schedule a meeting with him, in any case—and they did not make sudden requests for his attendance lightly, least not for 1 PM meetings. Such requests were guaranteed to be fraught with some crisis or another, and it was for some crisis or another that he’d cut his lunch short.

He’d arrived to a conference room abuzz with an energy that was anxious and bone-tired both, and the eyes that looked up as he entered held a sort of weary dread. Igeyorhm sat at the end of the long conference table, frowning as she read a document on her laptop. The seat beside her had been left empty, presumably for him; she glanced up from her laptop as he took a seat and opened her mouth to greet him, but a strange look came over her when she met his gaze—one of confusion and perhaps even suspicion.

“Are you all right?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. 

“What? Of course I am,” Solus replied, frowning.

She didn’t seem convinced but didn’t press the matter. “Thanks for coming so suddenly,” she said gratefully. “I thought it best that you were here since Lahabrea is away.”

“Think nothing of it,” said Solus with a nod. “So things have become quite real now, it seems.”

The corner of Igeyorhm’s mouth turned slightly up. “Very much so,” she replied, and Solus could hear a subtle hint of amusement in her words despite her obvious annoyance. It put him at ease since it meant that things were not so dire that he’d need to actually think.

Still, he ought to pay _some_ amount of attention in case he _did_ need to think—a task which was proving to be frustratingly difficult with his heart still fluttering in his chest. Fortunately for him (but unfortunately for the game console division), the topic of the meeting was the latest generation of the AnyderSoft console and the fact that their development milestones had slipped so far that they would not be able to ship on the announced release date. The legal implications of a delay were always fraught once they had accepted people’s gilin the form of preorders, which was why the AnyderSoft general counsel, Igeyorhm, and one of Pashtarot’s senior financial specialists were present to help the console division figure out their next steps.

This sort of thing bored Solus to no end and was part of the reason why he had so obstinately refused the position of CTO. At least the lead engineers of the console division had the discussion under control and were displaying the appropriate amount of shame as they described the high-level series of events over the past four years leading to their overall slip; he was sure Lahabrea would be well-apprised of their progress over the years, but Igeyohrm—perhaps wishing to make them sweat a bit—had asked them to summarize it all for Solus’ benefit. He knew things like delays were just the reality of development, but even Lahabrea had found their timeline uncomfortably optimistic.

And lo: here they were.

Or, more accurately: here the console division was, and here _he_ was to bear witness to their current tribulations.

The meeting wasn’t terribly long: it was the sort where everyone acknowledged that Yes, There Is a Problem and then scheduled further meetings to actually discuss the finer details of solving said problem. All the better, though, because he hadn’t been able to focus at all—his mind was still back at the café with the coffee and the sandwiches and that laugh—

“Emet, are you sure you’re all right?” came Igeyohrm’s voice as the meeting came to a close and the attendees got up to leave. Solus glanced down at her suspiciously.

“I said I was fine. Does it look as though something is the matter?”

“You look a tad ill is all—bit of a flush on your face,” said Igeyorhm as she rolled up her laptop’s charger cable.

“Thank you for your _concern_ , but I’m perfectly fine,” Solus replied, perhaps more sarcastically than intended. “I must be off—email me if you need anything else.” He held up a hand in farewell and turned to leave before she could ask any further questions; he _did_ feel a bit ill but certainly did not want her to know that.

As he made his way across the courtyard to the building where his office sat, he tried to no avail to push the ill feeling away. He couldn’t help but comb over the things he’d said during lunch and soon a creeping dread made its way into his gut—he’d done a good job making himself out to be a very boring person…

Solus exhaled sharply and frowned while he waited for the elevator. He did what he set out to do—coffee with the woman from the conference—and he’d done it expecting absolutely nothing to come of it so in the end, it didn’t matter whether he made himself out to be boring or not. He firmly told himself to put the nonsensical dread aside—to box it up, tape it shut, and shove it into the closet with all the other junk—because it was done and _relief_ was the correct feeling here, not dread.

But when he arrived at his office and sank slowly, wearily, into his chair, he stared blankly at his computer’s lock screen with the dread stubbornly lingering in the pit of his stomach. He buried his face in his hands and let out a low, drawn-out groan, and he rubbed his warming cheeks in a futile attempt to rub the dread away.

When finally the dread was under some semblance of control, he let his hands drop into his lap and nearly leapt out of his seat when he saw Hythlodaeus peering in through the just-open doorway.

“ _Hythlodaeus!_ ” Solus exclaimed in mingled surprise and indignation, before hastily clearing his throat and straightening up in his chair. “What are you doing skulking about?”

“And good afternoon to you too, my friend,” said Hythlodaeus, grinning as he invited himself in and made himself comfortable in the chair just across from Solus. He crossed his legs and smiled that charming, sweet smile that Solus well knew concealed gleeful mischief underneath, leaning forward to rest an elbow on the desk and his chin in his hand. “So, how was it?”

“How was what?”

The smile only grew sweeter.

“Your date, of course.”

“It wasn’t a date.”

“Ah, so you simply invited someone you fancy out for coffee for _work_ reasons.”

Solus kept his eyes on his monitors as he unlocked his computer. “I don’t _fancy_ her.”

At this, Hythlodaeus let out a loud, hearty laugh that went on far longer than it should have—Solus found his brow furrowing more and more the longer it went on.

“Well, then,” said Hythlodaeus once he finally stopped laughing as he wiped a mock tear from his eye, “how was your Not A Date with this person that you don’t fancy?”

Solus was making an attempt to read his emails in an effort to look at anything but Hythlodaeus, but while his eyes perceived some number of words, his brain processed exactly none of them. 

“It was fine,” he said finally, crossing his arms as he begrudgingly met Hythlodaeus’s gaze. “Though she must think I’m terrifically boring.”

“What makes you say that? Was she not enjoying herself?” 

He thought back on the café—she’d appeared to have a nice time, and had spent most of it smiling and laughing, but he had caught the subtle shift in her when her attempts to ask about his hobbies were met with very boring answers...

“I’m sure she was simply being polite.”

He was met with silence and a wide smile.

“... _What?_ ” Solus demanded.

Hythlodaeus shifted so that his hand rested on his cheek.

“Did you know that you’re smiling, my friend?”

In unthinking reflex, Solus scowled and averted his gaze from his friend in a huff, and to his horror he found an uncontrollable warmth spreading across his cheeks. He heard Hythlodaeus snickering quietly to himself and very pointedly did not look at him—instead he once more tried and failed to read his emails. “If you are here to revel in my misfortune, then pray do so when I don’t have two hundred emails to catch up on,” Solus said sullenly. 

“ _Misfortune?_ There’s no need to be quite so dramatic,” Hythlodaeus said in amused disbelief. “My goodness, Hades, it was coffee with someone who seems quite nice, not a sales meeting where everyone and the waiter is playing everyone else.”

Solus had finally found an email that his mutinous brain could process, and he spent the next minute silently typing out a reply with his brow fixed in a scowl. Were Hythlodaeus any other person, he’d not manage to get under Solus’ skin and Solus would have a perfectly composed face and a string of glib responses pouring out his mouth. As it was, he’d known the man for far too long and far too closely to bother with the façade—a fact which Hythlodaeus knew well and often used for his own entertainment. 

He knew just as well when he had gone too far.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Hythlodaeus said when Solus remained silent as he continued typing up a response. “Are you up for drinks later? I would love to hear about it, truly.”

Solus had half a mind to refuse out of spite, but a small part of him was reluctant to be alone today, and it was this part of him that gave his answer:

“Fine. My last meeting ends at five.”

Hythlodaeus smiled and clapped his hands together. “Perfect, mine as well. Meet you in the courtyard?” 

He said nothing but made a noise of assent, and this was enough for Hythlodaeus. 

“Good, see you later then, my friend!”

The sight of his friend’s retreating back was not the huge relief that he’d hoped, but at least now he could make a better attempt at reading emails than with Hythlodaeus there pestering him. Not that it was going much better _now_ than it was before...His only solace was the fact that the day would soon be over, there would be alcohol in his body, and then he could _finally_ say that he’d made an attempt and _finally_ box up the matter and put it away.

The end of the day could not come soon enough; his last meeting of the day unfortunately required him to be functional as it was one he’d organized himself to go over mitigation plans for upgrades to certain infrastructure that weren’t going as well as they’d hoped. By the end of it, he felt ready to strangle everyone and everything and must have looked it judging by the speed at which the meeting room had cleared out. He was quite ready now for food and especially alcohol, though he was perhaps less ready for Hythlodaeus’ impending interrogation. 

Soon he was down in the courtyard in the orange light of the setting sun, making his way toward their usual meeting spot near the south entrance. Hythlodaeus was already there, busy with a text conversation on his phone from what Solus could see as he drew near. “Ah, there you are!” Hythlodaeus said brightly. “Shall we go to our usual place?”

When Solus nodded in silent agreement, Hythlodaeus smiled and the pair of them set off for the tram stop. Hythlodaeus chattered about things of no consequence as they got onto the tram—or rather, chattered about things he knew Solus would find amusing but need not respond to—which included a nervous intern continuing to make messes of things in the kitchen (coffee grounds on the floor a second time) and a recording of a test run of a self-driving car and the improved collision avoidance heuristics that one of Hythlodaeus’s teams had worked on (the car hit a fake pedestrian almost immediately). 

Hythlodaeus was not disheartened by the car’s performance, though, and indeed was quite pleased because the fake pedestrian had been thrown into the car’s path very suddenly, and it had to make the difficult decision to either hit the thrown one or swerve into pedestrians on the pavement. It chose to hit the thrown one, and did _not_ lock up nor swerve so badly that it hit _all_ the pedestrians. The safety driver inside, however, had to seize control because the car evidently could not recover from the shock of killing a fake person and was driving erratically toward a crowd of real persons (the tech crew) off to the side.

This story lasted long enough for them to go the two stops into the outer edges of Downtown Mor Dhona, where they got off and made their way to a small Nagxian restaurant that over the years had become one of their regular after-work haunts. There was nothing particularly outstanding about the restaurant, and in fact the reason they liked to go there was because it _wasn’t_ outstanding. The food was good in an unremarkable sort of way and the restaurant itself was old and dirty, but after 5 PM all drinks and appetizers were a decent handful of gil off and better yet, they were unlikely to run into anyone from work. The friendly Au Ra woman who typically bartended in the evening was inexplicably fond of them, and it was she who greeted them with a cheerful wave when they entered the bar area and found their usual seats on the far corner of the bar.

“Ale today?” she asked, smiling as she set glasses of water down in front of them

“No, old fashioned, please,” said Solus heavily as he shrugged out of his jacket, and the bartender let out a small laugh.

“Long day today, eh?” she said in obvious amusement before she looked to Hythlodaeus. “You?”

“Thanalan ale, if you’d be so kind. And two orders of fish balls, please.”

Hythlodaeus continued his retelling of the self-driving car mischief while the bartender was getting their drinks, which didn’t take long at all since they were the only people present apart from a lone man on the other end of the bar. And with alcohol now in hand and the cursory first sips taken, Hythlodaeus shifted in his seat to better face him and grinned.

“So, how did coffee go?”

Solus took a big sip from his drink and crossed his arms. “Like I said earlier, it was fine.” And after a brief silence, he added, “We talked about games mostly, and machine learning.”

“That certainly sounds like a nice time, so why the drama earlier?” Hythlodaeus asked reproachfully. Solus let out an irritated sigh and looked away.

“You know perfectly well what I do in my off time, which is _almost nothing_. And the more she talked about hobbies, the clearer it became that I had none.” He took another sip from his drink. “I suspect she found me incredibly dull.”

Hythlodaeus chuckled and took a sip of his ale. “You are many things, my friend, but I wouldn’t say _dull_ is one of them.” He took another sip of ale, a hint of a smirk on the corner of his mouth. 

“Well, it’s no matter. It’s done.”

He frowned into his drink when Hythlodaeus chuckled again. 

“Giving up so easily? You’ve not even sent a follow-up email.”

At that, Solus snorted. “Follow-up email. How formal.”

Hythlodaeus snickered and rapped him on the arm with the back of his hand. “You know what I mean. It’s only polite, don’t you think?”

Solus rest his elbows on the bar and peered at Hythlodaeus over his shoulder in suspicion. His friend was being terribly persistent about the matter—it had been weeks since this entire thing started, and he would have expected Hythlodaeus to be bored of pestering him about it by now. He must know something or have some other reason to keep this up…

“Are you sure it’s not _you_ who fancies her?” Solus asked, arching an eyebrow. “Shall I introduce you?” 

Hythlodaeus laughed. “Well, I’d not complain about knowing someone like her. Unlike certain people who shall remain unnamed.”

“How about I email her right now, then?” said Solus, pulling his phone from his back pocket, and for full effect he even tapped into the email app as he held his phone up and waggled it at Hythlodaeus.

And because he couldn’t _not_ look at his email, he caught a brief glimpse of the newest items in his inbox and froze mid-waggle when his end-of-day brain finally processed what he’d seen. With muted dread he steeled himself for the inevitable as he tapped into the offending email— 

—and let out his breath in a small “ _oh._ ”

> **From** : Annaiette Verdeleaux  
>  **To** : solusg@anydersoft.com  
>  **Subject** : Re: #LEYLINES Ishgard Conference
> 
> Hi again,
> 
> I had a nice time at lunch today, thanks again for the sandwich and the conversation!
> 
> You left so suddenly that I wasn’t sure if me nearly punching the waitress was the straw that broke the chocobo’s back and you were just biding your time to escape.
> 
> In the off chance that you’re willing to risk further violence in my presence, it might be best not to leave a paper trail so here’s my cell number:
> 
> 206 557 6261
> 
> Text me (or don’t, that’s fine as well) 😄
> 
> \- Annaiette

He was much too old for mere words to paralyze him with the loud beating of his heart—much too old for words to draw a burning heat to his skin—much too old for this nonsense that was more suited to people twenty years younger—

And yet like a young fool he sat transfixed by the simple words in the glowing rectangle in his hand.

“What is it?” 

Hythlodaeus’ voice pierced through the wall of thoughts that had screeched to a halt at the edges of his mind.

“Nothing,” was his immediate knee-jerk reaction as he pressed the lock button on his phone. He gave Hythlodaeus a sidelong glance and found him leaning casually against the bar counter, head cocked to one side with his chin resting on his palm and a knowing grin on his face. Solus immediately turned away and brought his drink to his lips as he tried to rein in the warmth on his face. 

“Nothing,” Hythlodaeus repeated flatly. The grin was obvious in his voice.

“She gave me her number,” Solus murmured into the rim of his glass. 

The raucous laugh that came out of Hythlodaeus was both supremely irritating and somehow reassuring.

“See, that turned out nicely, didn’t it?” he chuckled before giving Solus a light, playful push on the shoulder. “I should hope that you’ll not require an additional two weeks and an equal number of meltdowns to send one text message.”

“Do you ever stop? I don’t know why I spend time with you,” Solus said, this time with the mock irritation familiar between the two of them. 

And despite his best efforts, he couldn’t stifle the smile on his lips as he downed the rest of his drink.

* * *

> Solus: Good evening, Solus here. I was given this number to evidently throw off the paper trail
> 
> Annaiette: Oh hi! Still quite the risk-taker, I see
> 
> Solus: I long for the thrill of violence, apparently 
> 
> Annaiette: Well good! That’s what this number is for
> 
> Solus: What sort of violence did you have planned?
> 
> Annaiette: There’s this leftover pie that has been giving me the stinkeye all evening
> 
> Solus: Well, don’t let me keep you. Show the pie what happens when it crosses you 
> 
> Annaiette: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ

* * *

The weekend’s arrival was a welcome relief. Solus’ work somehow doubled in the tail end of the week, and by the end of it he was utterly exhausted. He supposed it was due in some part to the work involved in his proposed plans to salvage the infrastructure upgrades that had gone _just sideways enough_ to cause problems, but the botched upgrades had _not_ been his fault so at least there was that. He did concede that he really ought to have foreseen the project’s near-failure, but the plan had been sound on paper and he’d foolishly trusted that it would also prove to be sound in execution. 

This exhaustion was, however, slightly mitigated by the somewhat regular text conversations he had with Annaiette. He’d sent the initial text at Hythlodaeus’ urging the night they went out for drinks (the deed was helped along by the two additional and unusually strong drinks they’d both consumed), and though he had never been one for idle chatter, he found himself inexplicably engrossed in their conversations when they were essentially just that.

Solus yawned as he poured himself a cup of coffee. 

On weekends he tended to sleep in so long that his morning coffee was more akin to lunchtime coffee, and today was no exception. He sat at the island countertop in his kitchen, sipping his almost-lunchtime coffee in the almost-noon light as he lazily scrolled through the day’s tech news—nothing interesting save for an article about a laughably awful crowdfunding campaign for some “holographic” phone that idiot so-called journalists were touting as the future of phones or some such nonsense.

But when the interesting articles were spent, he sat silently in his chair in his equally silent kitchen. The longer he sat, the more acutely aware he became of the fact that he was sitting alone in his sleep clothes on the weekend with no interesting plans to speak of. It was a fact that had once bothered him but had over the years faded into the background noise.

But now, for the first time in a very long time, he found himself confusingly restless.

And for the first time in a very long time, he decided he ought to try doing something about it.

> I thought I might go to Revenant’s Toll to eat. Would you like to join me?

He pointedly looked away from his phone and busied himself with his coffee and was deeply relieved that Hythlodaeus was not here to see him.

It was perhaps ten minutes later when he received a response.

> I’d love to but I had plans today. Sorry :(

He was in the process of deflating when further messages came in.

> Wait you might have fun
> 
> I’ll ask if it’s ok, one moment 

And a few minutes later:

> Do you want to come to Silvertear State Park? My friends said it’s fine if you come
> 
> They’re doing a test run of some new tech! It’ll be fun 

That certainly piqued his interest.

> Solus: Sure, that sounds interesting
> 
> Annaiette: Great! Meet you at Silvertear Park main gate at 2? There's an express train that goes straight there if you don’t want to drive
> 
> Annaiette: And wear something comfortable! We’re not hiking but it might be hiking-adjacent
> 
> Solus: So some form of walking. I shall leave my flying shoes at home then
> 
> Annaiette: Flying for next time!

Solus didn’t particularly care to drive today, least not to Silvertear since the highways leading there were a single lane in each direction and very prone to traffic jams. With a glance at the time, he tapped into his map app to look up train routes to the Silvertear main gate. The main gate was the only gate served by the light rail network, as it was where events such as concerts were held—all other gates to leading to trailheads and campgrounds required driving or busing. And it seemed he’d arrive right on time if he made it out of his home within the next hour.

He quickly finished his coffee and took shower, and soon was sitting on the tram to Revenant Station, which was by far the largest of the transit hubs in Mor Dhona and was where most of Mor Dhona’s rail lines converged. Most of his time on the tram—and then subsequently the express train—was spent trying not to think too hard about just what Annaiette had meant by “hiking-adjacent.” He was not wildly out of shape but he certainly didn’t exercise with enough regularity in recent times...And so to carefully ignore the slight anxiety of uncertainty, he spent his time speculating just what sort of tech she and her friends were testing in the state park. It was sure to be something small—an app or a remote-controlled device, perhaps. Maybe even something involving augmented reality...

The train arrived just before 2, and with some creeping anxiety that he was carefully ignoring, Solus stepped off and cast his eyes up and down the platform in search of Annaiette. He wondered if she’d been on the same train the whole time or if she was already at the park, but there was no sign of her among the disembarking passengers. With his hands tensed into fists in his pockets, he made his way out the station and toward the Silvertear main gate.

As the gate came into view, he saw the silhouette of the familiar Elezen standing on the pavement just beside the vehicle entrance, bobbing on the balls of her feet and scanning the street in his direction. She quickly caught sight of him and waved, to which he returned the gesture in kind. His chest twinged as his heart skipped a beat—he let out a cough to alleviate the discomfort and for a brief moment he felt a small measure of concern that he hadn’t had enough water today.

“Hi there!” Annaiette said brightly when he arrived at the gate. “You certainly look comfortable.”

“You _did_ say to wear something comfortable. Unless you meant ‘business comfortable,’ in which case I am woefully underdressed,” Solus said with a smirk. 

She let out a loud laugh. “In all honesty, I was expecting you to show up in slacks and dress shoes like at the zoo,” she said, grinning as she turned to lead him into the park. “Color me impressed.”

“The slacks and shoes at the zoo were simply because I didn’t care to pack more shoes,” he explained as he fell in step with her. “This is what I wear when I don’t need to be at the office. Such as now, for hiking-adjacent activities.”

He supposed his clothing was a departure from the business casual clothing he’d been wearing all the other times she met with him. Rather than the stuffy clothes he typically wore to work and work-related functions, his normal weekend attire generally consisted a very comfortable pair of tapered jogging pants, some manner of loose-fitting shirt and hoodie, and a pair of running shoes that he really ought to do more running in. There was no _real_ dress code enforced at AnyderSoft apart from “wear clean clothes and don’t walk around barefoot”, but he found over the years that he was much more intimidating when dressed nicely, which in turn made his job just slightly easier. 

“I like your priorities,” she laughed. “Clothes that would be good for a workout _and_ a nap.”

“Would that I had the energy to work out in addition to nap,” he said with an air of tongue-in-cheek weariness, to which she grinned.

“Is that so? Could’ve fooled me.”

Something about her words tweaked at his brain but he wasn’t sure what to make of it. So instead, he said, “You look quite comfortable yourself. Seems that you have the selfsame priorities.”

“You can’t do hiking-adjacent activities without being comfortable, obviously,” she replied with a sage nod. Her particular brand of comfortable meant a slim shirt and cropped running leggings, it seemed, and he couldn’t help but take note of just how long they made her legs look—

“Obviously,” he said lightly after pushing the thought away.

They were walking through the near-empty parking lot now—the only vehicle parked there was a lone pickup truck hitched to an empty flatbed trailer near the picnic area. And off in the rocky unpaved area past said picnic area were the silhouettes of a couple men, some sort of small...pet?...and a large mechanical something nearly the size of a car.

Solus’ eyes widened in surprise when they neared and it became clear that the large mechanical something was in fact a spider-like robot that seemed to be in the midst of calibrating itself. 

“ _Ah_ , you’re finally back, Annaiette. Right on time for the main attraction!” said the taller of the two men, who turned out to be a blond Garlean with a very self-assured smile—one which quickly changed to something more akin to shock when he caught sight of Solus at Annaiette’s side. “ _This_ is your friend?” he sputtered. “ _Why didn’t you say you were bringing_ _Solus Galvus?_ ”

The other man—shorter but stockier with silvery hair—glanced up from the control device in his hands and took a step back in equal shock. 

“Oh—erm—is Solus Galvus not allowed?” Annaiette laughed nervously. “Do you know each other?”

There was a brief silence while the two men visibly composed themselves.

“It is _certainly_ allowed for Solus Galvus to witness the brilliance of my work,” said the taller one finally with a grin.

“ _Our_ work, Nero,” said the other. 

“Let’s not quibble about the details, Garlond,” said Nero, dismissing his words with a wave of his hand before rounding on Annaiette. “While he may be a mere ‘what’s his face’ to _you_ , Annaiette, apart from the _incredibly obvious_ , everyone in the engineering programs at GarTech knows Solus Galvus.”

Solus looked to Annaiette questioningly and her eartips went slightly pink. 

“Allow me to introduce myself,” Nero continued, extending a hand to him. “Nero Scaeva.”

He shook Nero’s hand and the other one extended his hand in turn. “Cid Garlond,” he said with an almost embarrassed smile that betrayed his exasperation with his friend. 

After Solus shook Cid’s hand, he heard a loud _KWEH_ below and found the smallest chocobo he had ever seen looking up at him with a wing outstretched. This little chocobo had the distinction of also being the first little chocobo he had ever seen wearing a jacket—a white and blue little thing that was very well made and fit perfectly.

“And this is Alpha,” Cid added.

He peered down at the waiting chocobo.

“He wants to shake your hand,” Annaiette said when Solus gave her another questioning glance.

“Ah.” 

Solus wasn’t quite sure how to shake a chocobo’s wing, so he tentatively grasped a pair of Alpha’s outstretched feathers between his fingers and gave them a gentle shake. This appeared to be more than acceptable to the little chocobo, who let out a trill and a _KWEH_ and excitedly trotted around them. 

“Cid and Nero are here to do some rough terrain testing,” said Annaiette brightly.

“What you see here is Omega Mark IV,” Nero said proudly without missing a beat, stepping toward the spider-like robot as though on cue and sweeping his arm out with a flourish. “Second to none in quadrupedal locomotion, capable of carrying four hundred ponze over any conceivable terrain.”

“‘Any conceivable terrain’ is a bit generous. We’re here to test the newest iteration on rough terrain, after all,” Cid interjected. If Solus wasn’t mistaken, he heard a hint of warning in Cid’s voice—he suspected that Cid didn’t wish to oversell the robot in his presence. 

“Impressive,” Solus said with interest as he looked over the robot. It was quite obviously a prototype construction and so wasn’t the prettiest, but all its parts were expertly machined and maintained, and the cables that were visible were very carefully arranged and secured. Now that it had finished its calibrations, it sat motionless, presumably awaiting input from the controller in Cid’s hands.

“It will be _far_ more impressive once you see it in action,” Nero said loftily before rounding on Cid. “Let’s not keep him waiting, Garlond!”

“Wait, where’s the camera?” Annaiette said suddenly. “I thought I was supposed to film the test for you.”

“That’s right! Good thinking, my friend,” Cid said. He took a moment to rummage through a duffel bag by his feet, pulling out a small camcorder and passing it to Annaiette. She flipped the screen out and studied it for a moment before a grin spread over her face.

“Nero remembered to charge it this time.” She raised her eyebrows at the offending engineer, who grinned and held a finger up with a small flourish.

“But of course! Today’s test deserves nothing less than my full attention!”

Cid let out a disgruntled sigh. “And the last one didn’t, I suppose.” 

His exasperation lasted but a moment, though; a second later he straightened up and adjusted his grip on the controller in his hands. “Let’s get started. Annaiette, ready?”

“Ready! Rolling on 3!” 

Annaiette began counting down and when her countdown reached 1 she gave a silent nod.

“Welcome to Omega Mark IV rough terrain test,” Nero announced for the camera, holding up a finger with another flourish and a grin. “With version 0.2.4 of Scaevan onboard balance controller!”

Cid rolled his eyes at Nero’s words without taking his eyes off the tiny screen on the controller. “Starting test 1 at minimum speed over rocky, moderately loose terrain,” he said as he flipped a switch on the controller and pressed a button. With a dramatic series of beeps—an almost melodic crescendo which Solus was absolutely certain that Nero was responsible for despite knowing the man for all of five minutes—the Omega Mark IV whirred into life, lifting its underbelly off the ground with an ease that belied its apparent weight.

Soon Omega was off with a slow, steady gait, the sounds of its motors filling the air as it navigated the rocky terrain. It was impressive just how smooth its movements were, and even more so how it managed to correct itself with each slip of the foot or shift of the rock. Annaiette followed it with the camera with Alpha following quite seriously just behind her—as seriously as a chocobo could, in any case. The robot went perhaps twenty yalms out before Cid had it turn around and come back, which it did flawlessly. 

When Annaiette stopped filming, Nero wasted no time in turning to Solus and asking quite eagerly, “What do you think?”

“The balance correction is quite impressive, I must say.”

Nero looked positively gleeful. “ _This_ is nothing—wait until we really put it through its paces!”

The tests pushed the robot progressively faster, and Solus was fascinated with how well it was handling the terrain. It slipped and fell only when Cid pushed it to what Solus supposed was the upper bound of speed for the robot given the sounds of strain emanating from its motors, and even then it managed quite well and was able to pick itself up. It was obvious that Nero had his own concerns about how the robot was performing, though—every so often he muttered to himself and scribbled in a small notepad as he watched the robot walk.

Eventually the walking tests on the rocks concluded and it was time for them to start a series of tests on flat ground. It seemed that Annaiette was incredibly excited about this prospect and very eagerly went with Nero to get equipment from their truck, and they returned laden with large foam pads that appeared martial arts-related in nature and a pair of long sticks with towels lashed around one end. The towels gave the sticks a vague sort of glaive shape—were the sticks actually some manner of spear?

“What are these for?” Solus asked curiously when they dropped the pads and spears in a pile on the ground.

Annaiette picked up one pad and hefted it before gripping a thick strap on the back. “We borrowed these kick pads from the martial arts gym I train at. This is the part with the violence!” she said, and Solus inwardly laughed at her blindingly cheerful tone paired with the word ‘violence’. 

He approached to examine the pads closer, and she held the pad’s backside out to show him the straps. “And what manner of violence will be occurring?” He gave her a wry smirk as he glanced up from the pads to meet her grinning face.

“You’ll see!” was her reply before trotting off to stand beside Omega. Nero stood on the other side of the robot just across from her and waved his own foam pad at Cid.

“We’re ready, Garlond!” he called.

As Omega evidently required no manual controls for this test, Cid was now on camera duty. He took his place a short distance from them and with a laugh in his voice that he was obviously trying to stifle, he announced, “Omega Mark IV impact recovery test 1: lateral impact. Whenever you’re ready, friends!”

“You can have the honor of the first blow, Annaiette!” Nero called.

Annaiette let out an unrestrained laugh and redoubled her grip on her pad. “You’re too kind, Nero!” She bent her legs slightly—it was obvious in how her muscles tensed that she was well-versed in the art of the physical—before she let out an almost guttural yell and leapt forward, throwing her entire body at Omega with the pad held against her side to shield her from the chassis. Solus watched in silent awe as Omega stumbled sideways from the force of her blow—he was shocked by how far it stumbled—but before Omega could fully recover it received a similar full-body blow on the opposite side from Nero, which sent it stumbling back toward Annaiette. 

This continued for what must have been another six or seven rounds, with Omega performing very well until one blow from Nero at an awkward enough angle finally sent it to the ground. This victory of sorts—Annaiette certainly treated it like one and Solus couldn’t help but silently laugh—was short-lived, as Cid soon had them proceed to the next test, where Annaiette and Nero were to throw themselves at Omega from the same side at the same time. It was in this test where Omega faltered the most and appeared largely unable to recover from the pair’s forceful attacks. This went on for an additional six or seven rounds, until finally Cid deemed Omega’s impact recovery to be thoroughly tested.

“All right, that’s enough! Well done!” said Cid with an approving nod.

Nero and Annaiette let out sighs of relief and dropped the pads to the ground; they were both breathing heavily and by now had beads of sweat on their faces. 

“It did beautifully this time,” Cid said excitedly. “I do think we need to fix the rotator joints, though. Did you notice them hitching at the extremes?”

“But of course, Garlond!” Nero replied, straightening up as best he could whilst he caught his breath. “The range of motion in the new joints still leaves something to be desired, which ought to be fixed by…”

Annaiette appeared at Solus’ side as Cid and Nero grew engrossed in the technicals of their Omega tests. “So what do you think? Did you like it?” she asked as she wiped the sweat from her face.

“A surprising amount of violence for a tech test, I must say,” Solus said, giving her a wry half-smile. “Certainly an enjoyable amount, in any case. You have my thanks.” A vague, nearly indistinct feeling about _just_ how enjoyable it was drifted past, and though it was for but a moment it was disconcerting enough that he attempted to distract from it by adding, “Seems you enjoyed yourself as well. What did that poor robot do to deserve such savagery?”

A very serious, almost ominous look came over her and she put her hands on her hips. “You should have heard the things it was saying about Alpha. It had it coming,” she said darkly.

Her gray-blue eyes silently met his, her expression still gravely serious—but a moment later the corner of her mouth twitched and she tore her eyes away with a loud burst of laughter. 

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” She had her gaze averted and he couldn’t see her face, but the smile was evident nonetheless. 

They silently watched the two engineers still discussing—arguing?—by the idle Omega, upon which Alpha was happily perched.

Solus soon found himself increasingly anxious as the silence stretched on; a voice in the back of his mind was needling him to take action, though he didn’t know what manner of action to take—

Annaiette suddenly wheeled around to face him with a bright grin on her face.

“Do you think you’re still up for food?” she asked.

The voice was suddenly silent—his thoughts stalled—

“Certainly,” he replied, but he glanced over toward the engineers. “What about your friends?”

She let out a laugh. “They’re going to be like that for the rest of the day—as soon as they get back to the shop they’ll just be talking about all the data. Best to leave them to it unless you want to talk about Omega for the next four bells.”

As fascinating as the robot was, he wasn’t sure he wanted to spend the several bells of his short-lived weekend talking about it, least not with people he just met today.

“As _exciting_ as that prospect sounds,” he drawled, his voice tinged with sarcasm, “I shall have to decline. Food, however, sounds like a good idea.”

Her eyes crinkled at his words.

“Great! We can go once Omega is all packed up.” 

And as Annaiette ran off to collect the kick pads and the presumed spears that they never used, his heart skipped.

Solus let out a small cough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **tl;dr: solus goes outside during the weekend and there was much rejoicing**
> 
> thanks for reading, friends <3 <3
> 
> and also pls thank ZGuavi for fueling my brain with modern au fodder 🥰


	8. Chapter 8

Here he was.

Here, sitting on the train back to Revenant’s Toll beside one Annaiette Verdeleaux.

They’d taken their leave of the two engineers (and Alpha and Omega) once the robot was safely strapped onto their flatbed trailer, though not before Nero very insistently told Solus that he was very much welcome to observe any future tests. Much to the exasperation of Cid, of course, but Cid said nary a word in protest. Cid did, though, offer them a ride back from Silvertear before realizing that they wouldn’t fit—according to Annaiette it would have been a tight squeeze with all the equipment in the truck cab that wouldn’t be safe in the bed, and it had already been crowded when it was just her and Alpha in the back.

So here they were, sitting silently on the train as Annaiette watched the scenery outside go by with a thin smile on her face. Solus shifted slightly in his seat and did his best not to make his unease obvious; he’d taken a seat by the window without thinking and found that despite the handful of empty seats in the vicinity, she elected to sit in the one beside him. He couldn’t be sure if this was to be polite since they were traveling together, or if for some godsforsaken reason she wished to—

“So, did you have somewhere to eat in mind?” he asked as the train slowed at its next stop.

Two more stops until Revenant Station.

Annaiette chuckled. “I hadn’t actually thought that far.” She peered up at him, her head cocked just so. “Anything you’re craving?”

“Nothing particularly.”

She crossed her arms, drumming her fingers on a bicep as she presumably considered their many options.

“How about dumplings?” Annaiette asked finally.

“I’ll not say no to a good dumpling.” He smirked and gave her a sidelong glance. “Assuming they are _good_ dumplings.”

“Well, as it happens, you’re in luck,” she retorted, and an almost roguish smile appeared on her face. “Assuming you have _good_ taste.”

Solus was momentarily stunned by the cheek of this woman—there were few people with the brazen audacity to speak to him as such—but the noise that came out of his mouth was not one of displeasure but one of amusement. “We shall see,” he said wryly as he settled back into his seat with a small laugh.

It wasn’t long until the train arrived at Revenant’s Toll and they stepped off into the weekend hustle and bustle of the station. Annaiette clearly frequented the station as it took her but a moment to find her bearings and decide which of the many exits to use—immediately she set off, peering at him over her shoulder to presumably make sure he was not lost to the crowd. He quickly realized, however, that she was leading him in the opposite direction of what many would consider the center of the Revenant’s Toll neighborhood.

“Where _is_ this dumpling place?” Solus asked when they stopped at a corner to wait for a crossing light. She gestured vaguely down the street.

“It’s a bit further down—it’s not in the trendy part of Revenant’s Toll,” she explained as she bobbed on the balls of her feet. “It’s not very fancy but it’s not as though fancy ambience will make the dumplings taste any better.”

She peered at him when she finished speaking, and he caught the subtle flicks of her eyes as they studied his face. Was she testing him?

Fortunately for her (or for himself? he couldn’t be sure), he didn’t give half a damn.

“There are times for so-called ‘fancy ambience’ and times where one just wants dumplings in one’s stomach.” He shrugged a small shrug to emphasize the lack of damns that he gave.

A grin spread across her face just as the crosswalk light changed and they continued on their way. “Well, I hope this is one of those times,” she said with a wry laugh.

She led him a few blocks down, where the storefronts and even the street itself seemed more run down than the trendy part of Revenant’s Toll that most people thought of when they heard the name. Eventually she found the restaurant she was looking for: a Doman place that had a dated, fading storefront and a simple and perhaps slightly dirty interior, and was very packed and very busy despite their awkward, slightly-too-early-for-dinner arrival. It was then that it became abundantly clear that Annaiette knew what she was talking about and it was then that Solus knew that these dumplings were sure to be at least _good_ , if not better.

Despite how crowded the restaurant was, it seemed there were still a smattering of small tables available—they were seated almost immediately at a small table for two near the window, menus in hand with a small pot of tea between them. “I like coming here,” Annaiette said as she scanned the menu. “Haven’t been in a long while.”

Solus opened the menu himself and found it wasn’t terribly long. “What would you suggest, then?” he asked.

“Well,” she began, leaning toward him to point at things on his menu, “can’t go wrong with these! Two orders and maybe some vegetables should be good for two people, unless you’re really hungry.” She paused for a moment as though calculating some equation in her head, before she grinned. “Better make it three orders. All that violence made me hungry.”

“I shall leave it to you then, as you seem to know what you like,” Solus said, and a silent laugh escaped his chest.

“Are you allergic to anything?”

The prudence and consideration of the question took Solus by surprise.

“No.”

“Great!” she said brightly, and she wasted no time in flagging down a waiter to make their order. It was admittedly amusing, but judging by the busy energy in the place, it was certainly not the sort of place to take half a bell to decide what to order and then another three eating it. Not that he was really one for _those_ sorts of dinners; there were times where he was strongly encouraged (required) to attend business dinners, and more often than not he found himself wishing for the sweet embrace of death after the second hour of wine and businessman posturing.

Her eyes met his as she turned back after speaking with the waiter, and the corners of her eyes crinkled before she turned her attention to the teapot. “Tea?” she asked. He nodded and pushed his teacup toward her.

“So tell me,” he began as she poured the tea, “do your friends’ tech tests always involve so much...violence?”

“Not always,” Annaiette said as she finished pouring. “The early tests didn’t have much—Omega could hardly walk then. Nero told me he pushed one of the early prototypes over and it broke all the servos in one leg.” She took another sip and let out a laugh. “Omega Mark IV walks just fine, as you witnessed today. So we hit it.”

Her tone was so matter-of-fact that Solus was only just able to stifle a laugh.

“Ah. The poor robot finally masters walking and is immediately beset by bloodthirsty engineers. I never expected such cruelty out of you.”

The grave look came over her again.

“Like I said, you didn’t hear the things he said about Alpha.” The grin quickly reappeared on her face. “So what was that about _everyone_ at GarTech knowing Solus Galvus? Nero was certainly excited.”

“I went to GarTech in the distant past,” Solus said, smiling into his teacup before taking a sip. “And because GarTech alumni helped found AnyderSoft, naturally they wish for it to be their success as well. They invite me to speak there every so often, and when AnyderSoft was still headquartered in Garlemald, they had me give seminars maybe one term a year.” But as soon as the words left his mouth, regret washed over him; he was surely making his age quite obvious now—

“You only continue to surprise,” Annaiette said with her eyebrows raised in what Solus hoped was awe. “Makes me wonder what you’re doing hanging around with little old me.”

There was something in her voice—a hint of anxiety, perhaps—that only amplified the feelings of regret.

“The violence, remember? It was your idea, after all,” Solus said lightly, and for good measure he gestured at her with his teacup.

“Well, I am a simple person, Mr. Galvus,” she said, drawing herself up with her chin up in a stately manner. “People ask me to hit things, and then I hit them.”

“Well, _Ms. Verdeleaux_ , I shall remember this the next time I have something that requires hitting,” said Solus with a smirk, and the thought of Hythlodaeus and his insufferable, smug smile drifted through the back of his mind.

Her laugh, quieter indoors but no less effusive, somehow cut through the din of the restaurant.

A silence stretched between them as they sipped their tea. Out of the corner of his eye, Solus could see Annaiette’s thumbs drumming against the rim of her teacup.

The drumming of her thumbs stopped.

“I’m glad you were able to come,” Annaiette said finally. “I hope I didn’t interrupt any weekend plans or anything.”

Solus took care not to laugh at the preposterous idea that he might have had weekend plans.

“Ah, not only is she violent, but she is a ruiner of weekend plans,” Solus said airily. “Truly a menace—is there no one who can stop her?”

She let out a small sort of amusement. “I will ruin all the plans,” she laughed. “Even the gods can’t stop me—I’ll ruin their plans too.”

Just as Solus opened his mouth to respond in kind, a waiter appeared at the table to drop off a plate of the fattest dumplings that he had ever seen—they were full to bursting but the wrappers held their shape perfectly with nary a hint of leaking or tearing. He glanced up to Annaiette to gauge her reaction to these dumplings and stifled a laugh at her eagerness, which was amusing and fascinating both.

“What?” she asked when she realized he was watching her.

He wasn’t sure what, so he hastily but nonchalantly pulled nonsense from the aether and said, “Just waiting to see how you eat them, hero. You are the expert here, after all.”

“Oh, did I come off as competent earlier? My apologies, that wasn’t my intention,” she laughed wryly. But regardless, she held up a small carafe of what he presumed was soy sauce before pouring some into a little dish. “I’m no expert by any means, but you can’t go wrong with soy sauce. And vinegar.” She held up another carafe that had a sauce that was the same color as the first one—the only difference was that this carafe was slightly bigger. She then took a dumpling with her chopsticks and dipped it into the little dish. “And you dip it and then you put it in your mouth. I’m assuming you can take it from there.”

She grinned and bit into the dumpling before gesturing at the plate of dumplings with her free hand to urge him to eat. He required no further urging and took a dumpling—he found that it was just as weighty and juicy as it appeared and was perhaps one of the best he’d had in recent memory, something which certainly had nothing to do with the fact that he hadn’t eaten anything today but a slice of toast and a cup of coffee.

“It’s good,” Solus said once he finished the dumpling. Annaiette appeared just as hungry as she’d claimed and had already started on a second dumpling—she tried to smile just after biting into it and hastily pressed a napkin to her face when the dumpling juices threatened to escape.

“Good taste,” she said once she swallowed her mouthful and wiped her face. “So is this a time where you just want dumplings in your stomach, or did you need the fancy ambience after all?”

“I think the times where one simply needs dumplings outnumber the times where one needs fancy ambience by far.” He took another dumpling with a wry smile.

“When _are_ those times when you need the fancy ambience?”

“When one must entertain pretentious executives with a taste for the ostentatious, for instance,” Solus said, sniffing with disdain.

Annaiette let out a small snort of laughter. “Oh? There’s clearly a story there. Or several.”

“Several,” Solus agreed, but he hesitated. He didn’t think the stories were terribly interesting — they were mostly about boring people using the company credit card at obscenely expensive restaurants to impress each other in lieu of having actual personalities.

“Do tell,” she said brightly.

And this was how Solus found himself telling a story from the earlier days of AnyderSoft when all of them were younger and stupider, when Nabriales got into an inane pissing contest with executives from Moogle at a fancy restaurant. He and their CIO spent an obscene amount of gil on appetizers alone as they attempted to one-up each other’s knowledge of food and travel; neither had particularly accurate knowledge of the things they were talking so confidently about, and neither would back down even when they realized they couldn’t stomach the taste of all the roe they had ordered. Watching them doing their damndest to keep it all down had been the silver lining of an otherwise unbearable evening.

“Wait, wait—!” Annaiette interrupted. She forced her mouthful down and gave him a look of cheeky disbelief. “ _What_ did he look like? Show me that face again,” she laughed.

“I’m afraid if you missed it the first time, you’re out of luck,” Solus said with a smirk.

“It was such a good face, though! Come on, once more...?” Annaiette clasped her hands together, her eyes pleading. When he didn’t respond, she redoubled her efforts and added, “Are the puppy eyes working?”

Solus was silent a moment longer for dramatic effect before he shrugged in feigned, begrudging defeat. “Once more then. Do pay attention this time.”

And once more he mustered his best approximation of Nabriales’ face that night.

Annaiette’s cackling laughter filled the air.

He quietly smiled at the sight of her and let out a small cough as he took another dumpling.

* * *

The entirety of Leve was ready to hurl their computers through the window.

Which they didn’t do, of course, because replacing computers and repairing broken windows cost quite a lot of money. They did, however, commiserate in this shared fantasy whilst they loudly and irately dealt with the latest in a series of wrenches their cloud platform service threw at them this morning.

“I thought they weren’t doing the IP changeover for another moon yet,” Moenbryda grumbled.

Annaiette let out a frustrated grumble in kind. Their cloud platform service—which they paid a decent and not-inconsequential amount of money to use—had reconfigured some key systems that they relied on without warning. Or perhaps even worse than “without warning,” it was _with_ a warning that turned out to be bollocks anyway, because Bismarck just inexplicably did the changeover _and_ suddenly added a handful of headache-inducing limitations regardless of all the users who now had to scramble to put their services right.

It hadn’t taken them long to slap a bandage on the issue and get everything up and running once they figured out just what it was that Bismarck did to them, but the bandage was not a real solution, nor did they wish to put forth the effort to develop the real solution when they weren’t certain if Bismarck was going to roll the change back or not.

“Why does this always happen right after the weekend?” Coultenet groaned, leaning back as far as he could over his chair backrest. “What is wrong with them?”

Annaiette had been wrestling with just _what_ was wrong with Bismarck for some time now; the service was acceptable and the support was acceptable, but they were making increasingly questionable decisions this past year that made her seriously wonder if they ought to change platforms. It would be expensive but hypothetically would get them better support in return and be more cost effective should they need to scale up further. Y’shtola and Moenbryda glanced at her searchingly; as a team, they’ve had conversations about this dilemma since last year and they had already done the preliminary research into how much it would cost in both money and dev resources to make such a change…

“Changing platforms is trivial.”

All eyes slowly turned to Y’shtola.

“I can get it done in a week. Should you decide which platform to switch to, of course,” Y’shtola said, the hint of a self-assured smile on her face as one of her ears subtly twitched. There was almost a challenge in her voice—the familiar tone of a woman who would get things done if only people would make up their minds.

Hadn’t they talked about how much work it would be? _Months and months of it?_

But it was Y’shtola, after all. She was completely confident in her words and naturally appeared more annoyed than concerned by everyone else’s abject disbelief.

“We _did_ run the numbers,” Coultenet murmured thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t be _awful_ to switch to AnyderSoft or Moogle Cloud, and either will have much better support.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer we go with Moogle Cloud,” said Y’shtola, crossing her arms. “AnyderSoft tech is certainly more powerful but their management tools ought to be pitched into the Indigo Deep.”

Annaiette stifled a laugh but could not stifle a grin. “Let’s have a chat with Minfilia and Tataru to go over the budget once more, then,” she said, scooting her chair back to her desk to examine her calendar. This, as it often did, signaled that the Coworker Gathering was coming to a close: Coultenet and Hoary Boulder got up and made for the kitchen, while Riol scooted his chair back to his own desk on the other end of the room.

“Y’shtola, do you want to come to the meeting?” Annaiette asked.

“No.”

She stifled another laugh before turning to Moenbryda. “Moenbryda?”

“I’ll come,” Moenbryda replied. After a moment, Annaiette felt eyes on her and turned to see what the problem was, only to find that Moenbryda had leaned in with a roguish smile on her face. “Think you could get What’s His Face to get us a discount if we went AnyderSoft instead? I’m sure that coffee chat went well, hm?”

“What? _Hah_ —I—” Annaiette’s voice came out in a burst of nervous laughter before she managed to rein in her composure. “Of course, and I’ll tell him we think the management tools are awful as well, I’m sure he’d be quite happy to _personally_ fix that for us.”

“While you’re at it, tell him to fix the convoluted mess it is to set up custom environment parameters,” came Y’shtola’s voice from the other side of Moenbryda’s desk.

Annaiette and Moenbryda looked to each other in momentary disbelief, and a moment later snickered at the dry but somehow incredibly cheeky tone of Y’shtola’s words.

And soon their snickers soon turned into full-blown laughter—Y’shtola even had a small smile whilst she worked at what must have been double speed—and the stresses of the day slowly melted away.

* * *

Hythlodaeus sipped his tea and smiled.

He hadn’t looked at their old repo in many, many years, and it was just as good as he remembered.

> ### Commits on 17th 6UM, 1558 6AE
> 
>  _ **Emet-Selch** committed 20 years ago_  
>  Refactored for proper inheritance because apparently I’m the only one with standards.
> 
>  _ **AZEM** committed 20 years ago_  
>  Got grapes at the store today. Also, fixed whatever the hell fandaniel broke.
> 
>  _ **FANDANiEL** committed 20 years ago_  
>  what hte hells, class missing propertes, added
> 
>  _ **pashtarot** committed 20 years ago_  
>  added class
> 
> ### Commits on 16th 6UM, 1558 6AE
> 
>  _ **nabriales** committed 20 years ago_  
>  dumb shite
> 
> ### Commits on 15th 6UM, 1558 6AE
> 
>  _ **Lahabrea** committed 20 years ago_  
>  Added new parameters for locomotion, also including:  
>  \- Adjustments to vision processing to better handle obstructions in the periphery  
>  \- Fix to possible infinite loop in edge case  
>  \- Added mappings for observable joint order in walker  
>  \- Updates to readme to properly document recent updates to locomotion
> 
> ### Commits on 13th 6UM, 1558 6AE
> 
>  _ **Elidibus** committed 20 years ago_  
>  updated Convocation contribution page
> 
>  _ **AZEM** committed 20 years ago_  
>  Truly it is beautiful, that hour before the sun begins to ascend to its place, when the darkness begins to fade, when the world begins to stir. It is this hour which I treasure most, where one can step outside in the dewy air and breathe - truly BREATHE - and you take it in, and you feel it, and when you feel the world and all its connections and every soul on this star, you know that this machine you are nurturing is worthy of a place among us.
> 
> Basically: refactored the whole module, now almost 50% faster!
> 
>  _ **Loghrif** committed 20 years ago_  
>  Fixed normalization function to avoid dividing by zero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **tl;dr: who doesn't like dumplings?**
> 
> leve's woes are all galaxy brain ideas courtesy of [zguavi](https://twitter.com/zguavi) 😍🥰🥰🥰


End file.
